On a warm morning in March, 100-odd residents of Manavseva Project, a shelter home at Arangaon, 11 km from Ahmednagar town in western Maharashtra, are out in the open, basking in the bright sunshine after breakfast. Built on a two-acre plot, the home is surrounded by fields of jowar, bajra, wheat, soyabean, and groundnut. Visitors must make their way through narrow kuccha pathways in the middle of the fields to reach the home run by Shree Amrutvahini Gramvikas Mandal, an NGO founded by Dilip Gunjal.
Among the residents are men and women rescued by the State police after they were lured by traffickers or contractors with the promise of work with good pay and food, but forced into bonded labour. Siraj Shaikh, administrative officer of the NGO, says the shelter home is the only refuge for rescued bonded labourers in Ahmednagar. He says most of them are not able to communicate well as they are still recovering from the trauma of living in inhumane conditions, and being beaten, bound, drugged, and forced into working for long hours with little food or water.
