After being held captive for three months, 17 women labourers of the district were finally rescued from a brick kiln in Telangana on Friday.
Acting on media reports on the labourers enslaved at various brick kilns near Hyderabad in Telangana, district Collector K Sudarshan Chakraborty and the SP had directed the police and Labour Department officials to take immediate steps to rescue the labourers.
Later, a five-member team of the Laxmipur police and district labour office left for Telangana on Tuesday.
The team in coordination with their counterparts there rescued all women labourers from a brick kiln, around 100 km away from Hyderabad in Telangana on Friday.
Sources said all the labourers are residents of Chuchukana and Piskadang villages under Laxmipur block in the district. Two labour contractors had lured the labourers on the pretext of providing them lucrative jobs.
Earlier on December 21, seven labourers from Odisha who hade been held captive at a brick kiln in Vizianagaram were rescued and brought back to the State. Prior to this, five labourers from Sundargarh district had managed to escape after the brick kiln owner allegedly threw acid and cut the finger of two labourers in Andhra Pradesh.