A US-based Hindu organisation - the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sansth (BAPS) - has been accused "of luring labourers from India to work on temples near Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles, as well as in Robbinsville, New Jersey, paying them just $450 a month" in a lawsuit filed in a New Jersey Federal Court and amended last month, as reported by The New York Times on Wednesday. BAPS representatives have denied any wrongdoing.
According to the report, a group of Indian workers filed a lawsuit against BAPS in a US district court alleging violations of human trafficking and wage law. The complaint has also mentioned six men among over 200 Indian nationals who have been "lured" in to the country since 2018 on religious visas "R-1 visas".
In May, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided the Swaminarayan Temple in Robbinsville, New Jersey, and rescued around 200 workers, “most of them Dalits, Bahujans, and Adivasis”.
At that time, an original lawsuit was filed by a group of Indian workers, claiming that they were "forced" to work for about $1 an hour to construct the massive Swaminarayan Temple in New Jersey. Later, the lawsuit expanded the claims to include violations at temple sites across the country.