HYDERABAD: Calling for immediate implementation of the Bonded Labour Abolition Act, representatives of several civil society organisations speaking at a gathering on Tuesday condemned death of a peasant boy during a police raid in Kunri town of Umerkot district on a court order a couple of weeks back.

The court had ordered the raid to liberate some peasant families from bonded labour. During the raid, some armed men appeared at the scene and opened fire to resist the police action. A boy, Narain Bheel was killed in the firing.

The speakers urged the government to arrest the attackers and their patrons and introduce land reforms in order to check bonded labour.

Zulfiqar Shah of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), Suleman G. Abro of the Sindh Agriculture and Forest Workers Coordinating Organisation, Mohammed Ali Shah of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, Ghaffar Malik of the Sindh Development Society, Dr Ashothama of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and writer Zulfiqar Halepoto were among the speakers.

They urged the government to reactivate district vigilance committees to avoid such incidents in future.

The meeting regretted that legislators also took feudal lords’ side while settling a dispute between them and their peasants.