A class-action suit has been presented before the United States District Court at New Jersey on behalf of more than 200 Indian workers who were purportedly put through to evident violations of labor law at the instruction of a Hindu organization. The appeal has been filed against Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) for purportedly pressurizing Indian migrants into forced labor which resulted in the death of one of the workers among them. As per the complaint, the workers were enlisted from India to go to the United States with R-1 religious visas to do stonework and other kinds of construction work in New Jersey. The workers have spent years in building and maintaining the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Robbinsville, New Jersey, proclaiming to be the largest Hindu temple in the United States. The BAPS further demanded that the workers were brought from India and were made 87 hours of work a week at $450/ month which is below the state and federal minimum wage. It was also demanded that the workers were pressurized to live and work in fenced, guarded premises which they weren’t allowed to leave solitary by supervisors affiliated with BAPS.
