TOBA TEK SINGH, March 7: A district and sessions court bailiff raided two brick kilns here on Tuesday and recovered more than 30 unlawfully confined workers, including women and children.

In a petition filed by Bhatta Mazdoor Union leaders, District and Sessions Judge Chaudhry Shabbir Hussain Chatha ordered the court bailiff to raid the kilns situated in Chak 307-GB and 342-GB (Chohar Wala).

Meanwhile, the freed workers staged a demonstration outside the district press club against the kiln owners and raised slogans condemning bonded labour.

Pakistan Bhatta Mazdoor Alliance president Rana Muhammad Azam, Child Rights Committee district coordinator advocate Mehr Rab Nawaz Dauana and Labour Party district secretary-general Tariq Mahmood informed journalists at a press conference that the kiln owners showed fake entries of advance payment allegedly made to the workers in their ledgers.

The owners, they alleged, forced the poor labourers and their families to work at the kilns for unspecified period. Some of the owners even tied the workers with chains, they added.