DUSHANBE, July 5, 2011, Asia-Plus – Officers from the special police unit have freed five Tajik nationals from bondage in Russia’s Irkutsk region, Vzglyad.ru quoted the source at the Irkutsk police directorate as saying.

They were forced to work free of charge at a farming unit in the village of Markovo because the householder took their passports.

“On Monday July 4, representatives of the Tajik Ambassador to Russia applied to us and noted that a fellow countryman phoned him and said that householder has been holding him and four other labor migrants by force at the farming unit in the village of Markovov,” the source said.

When the special police unit officers arrived in Markovo, they found five guest workers who were living in cowhouse together with cattle.

The guest workers said that the householder had taken their passports and when the time had come to pay their salaries she had said that she had missed four head of cattle, and therefore, they should clear loss of cattle by working.  “She has fed the labor migrants only with bread and water and they have lived in cowhouse together with cattle,” the source noted.

Officers from Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS) have found out that the labor migrants freed from bondage were staying in Russia illegally.  The prosecutor’s office is currently probing into illegal deprivation of liberty.