24th June, 2020
The Police Command in Kano State has rescued 126 workers allegedly forced to spend three months in a factory called ‘popular farm rice’ in Challawa industrial area.
It was gathered that the labourers were forced to work under hard condition despite the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown order.
It was also learnt the company promised to add only N5000 to their meagre pay for working day and night during the lockdown.
According to some of the workers, the firm managers threatened to sack them should they go home to see their families.
The Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Abdullahi Haruna, confirmed this in a statement in Kano.
Haruna revealed that on June 21, at about 6:00 p.m., a complaint was received from Global Community for Human Right Network, Kano, that some laborers were wrongly confined inside the said Popular Farms and Mills.
He gave the address of the firm as No. 54 Challawa Industrial Estate, Kano.
“On receiving the information a team of policemen were deployed and when search was conducted, 126 labourers trapped inside the factory for three months were rescued,” he said.
According to him, four senior staff of the Indian-owned firm in Kano have been arrested over the incident.
Haruna said that the state Commissioner of Police, Mr Habu Ahmad, has ordered an investigation to unravel facts of the matter.