A lawsuit during which staff accuse a Hindu group of human trafficking by way of luring them from India to construct a temple in New Jersey for as low as $1.20 an afternoon has widened to 4 different states.
Within the preliminary lawsuit filed in Would possibly, staff at a Hindu temple in Robbinsville, New Jersey, claimed leaders of the Hindu group referred to as Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, or BAPS, coerced them into signing employment agreements and compelled them to paintings greater than 12 hours in step with day with few days off, below the watch of safety guards.
The amended lawsuit filed final month added a number of extra staff to the lawsuit. The employees, who the lawsuit says have been from marginalized communities in India, declare they have been exploited at temples in Chino Hills, California, out of doors Los Angeles; Bartlett, Illinois, out of doors Chicago; Stafford, Texas, out of doors Houston; and Lilburn, Georgia, out of doors Atlanta.
A message in quest of remark was once left Wednesday with an lawyer for BAPS.
The employees allege that whilst they weren’t pressured to paintings as many hours as their opposite numbers in New Jersey, they have been paid neatly under requirements set by way of federal and state minimal salary rules. More than one staff named as plaintiffs labored at greater than probably the most temples, the lawsuit alleges, some for so long as 8 or 9 years in general.
Very similar to the allegations within the preliminary swimsuit in opposition to the Hindu temple in Robbinsville, out of doors the New Jersey capital of Trenton, staff on the temples within the different 4 states declare they weren’t allowed to have their passports and slept in huge halls at the temple grounds that have been monitored by way of safety guards.
On the Robbinsville temple and in other places, the defendants deliberately led to the employees to relatively consider that in the event that they attempted to go away their paintings and the temple compounds, they’d undergo bodily restraint and critical hurt,” the lawsuit claims.
The temples named within the lawsuit are all affiliated with BAPS, an organization registered in Delaware and with places of work in Piscataway, New Jersey.
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