'1 of us killed, dumped in sack': Rescued bonded labourers

AGRA: A bonded labourer was allegedly murdered inside a Muzaffarnagar factory six months ago after he tried to resist and leave captivity, police said a day after 12 workers were rescued from the unit in Mandi village under Titawi police station limits.The rescued workers told police that one among them - Topi alias Arjun - was killed by the accused in Nov 2025, his body stuffed into a sack and dumped. Police said an unidentified body was found 700 metres from the factory that same month. "A postmortem was conducted and the body was cremated soon after. We are trying to ascertain if it was Arjun's," an officer said.Police filed a separate murder case and launched a search for factory owner Ankit Balyan.

Two accused, Shiva Tyagi and Pradeep Balyan, were earlier arrested and sent to judicial custody. Muzaffarnagar SSP Sanjay Kumar Verma said, "During questioning, the rescued labourers said Arjun was murdered in Nov 2025 and his body was stuffed into a sack and disposed of."Police are trying to establish Arjun's full identity, native place, family links and the location where his body was allegedly dumped. Teams are checking missing-person records across districts, questioning the arrested accused and verifying the rescued workers' statements to reconstruct the events of Nov 2025.

Officials said the murder probe would run separately from the bonded labour case, though both investigations are linked to the same factory and accused.The rescue operation was carried out on Tuesday by Titawi police and rural SOG under the supervision of SP, rural, Akshay Sanjay, after families of several missing labourers from different states approached Muzaffarnagar police. The 12 rescued workers, including a minor, were from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Rajasthan.

They told investigators they had been picked up from railway stations and public places with promises of jobs, regular wages, food and accommodation.Once brought to the factory, the labourers alleged that their mobile phones were taken away, their movement was restricted, and they were forced to work long hours without wages. They told police they were given only one meal of dry rotis a day, beaten with pointed sticks whenever they demanded money, fell ill or tried to leave, and threatened with a pit bull dog to prevent escape.Verma said the rescued labourers received medical treatment and counselling after being brought out of captivity. "All rescued bonded labourers have been provided medical treatment, and counselling sessions are being conducted by psychiatrists to help them recover from the trauma they endured," he said, adding that four of the 12 had been reunited with their families while efforts were underway to contact relatives of the others."Efforts are being made through various NGOs to rehabilitate the rescued workers and help reintegrate them into mainstream society. The procedure to provide financial assistance to the rescued workers through the labour department is underway," Verma said.