A leading Hindu sect is accused of forcing hundreds of workers from lower castes in India to work in brutal conditions for virtually no money at temples being constructed in cities across the United States.
Nongovernmental lawyers representing 17 of the workers, including four who died in the days after leaving the job sites, sued the sect, known as BAPS, in a New Jersey federal court, the New York Times reported Thursday. The complaint was originally filed in May and amended in October. It states that BAPS leaders tricked the workers into traveling across the globe to build temples outside cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles.
The workers at one such temple site in Robbinsville, New Jersey, were forced to work seven days a week and earned the equivalent of $15 a day, or $450 for a month’s work. That work site was raided in May by federal law enforcement from the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Labor. Agents removed approximately 100 workers. The raid followed a tip from a worker who contacted a lawyer after his colleague died at the New Jersey temple in 2020.
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Since the springtime raid, prosecutors have built out their case to include similar workplace violations at BAPS temple projects in other cities.
In New Jersey, specifically, the workers were recruited by BAPS because of their disenfranchisement as members of the lowest tier in the sect’s hierarchy. They were wooed in India with promises of good pay and hours, but once in the U.S., the workers were not allowed to leave the temple site, and overseers took their passports so that the workers could not leave, according to the lawsuit. The labor they were forced to carry out was gruesome, and workers were exposed to unsafe chemicals and fumes, though it is unknown if those factors led to the deaths of four people shortly after they left the site.
“They thought they would have a good job and see America. They didn’t think they would be treated like animals, or like machines that aren’t going to get sick,” Swati Sawant, an immigration lawyer in New Jersey, told the New York Times for a May report.
BAPS is accused of violating the state’s labor laws, as well as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which provides a framework for going after crime syndicates. The sect is closely tied to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
BAPS leadership denied breaking any U.S. laws. Former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Paul Fishman is representing BAPS and said the workers were considered volunteer stone artisans and were admitted to the U.S. with R-1 visas, which are for religious workers.
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The federal departments involved in the raid did not comment to the New York Times about any possible federal investigation into the allegations.
