Kishor Bandichhor of Amguda village in Farsara gram panchayat of Nuapada district is missing for last four weeks. He was working in a brick kiln of Secunderabad since July 9.
All efforts by his wife Pratima to pursuade the local broker Arun Nial, a resident of Binopur village under Boden block, who took Kishor to the kiln, to bring him back has gone futile. Arun now says that Kishor fled a train, while returning with four other labourers to Kantabanji from Secunderabad. Pratima and her six -year- old daughter are now helplessly running from Amguda to Binopur every now and then to meet Arun to get his help, with the latter now going evasive.
Kishor with his wife Partima and their daughter had returned from a brick kiln in mid- May last after a six-month of working there in a brick kiln near Secunderabad. “We went there in the month of Magh (mid-January) and returned in Jestha (June). Arun called my husband oven phone repeatedly to go to the kiln again and he left home unwillingly a couple of days after the Rath Yatra,” informed Pratima.
Pratima says that she doesn’t know to which kiln Kishor went this time. “Arun did not tell anything about the Seth (owner) this time; he only intimated me four weeks ago that my husband was suffering from fever and someone should go to the kiln to bring him back.
My husband’s brother Raidhar with his nephew Beda Gahir went to Kantabanji to proceed for the work place, but Arun detained them at Kantabanji for two days.
After two days, he told that Kishor is returning with four other labourers.
When those labourers arrived at Kantabanji, they told that, Kishor fled the train” describes Pratima.
Raidhar was not convinced with the information provided by the labourers; so he took the details about the kiln owner and went to Secunderabad to inquire about Kishor.
However, after reaching Secunderabad they were not allowed to go in to the kiln.
The ower forced them to return from the station saying that Kishor is not there in his kiln.
“I don’t know whether he is still alive or not; I don’t understand whom to approach,” says Pratima with desperation.
The contractor, in the meanwhile has handed over a medical reports to Pratima, which reveals that Kishor was admitted to a local hospital and was subsequently referred to the Osmania General Hospital at Hyderabad on July 15 with complaint of headache, vomiting and tremors of hands and feet. Pratima, however does’nt believe this explanation. “If my husband was so much sick and was on his way home, why would he escape half way? The contractor is concealing something,” says she.