Indian workers lured to US and paid US$1.20 per hour to build Hindu temple, lawsuit says

More than 200 were allegedly brought in under religious worker visas then forced to live in a fenced-in compound monitored by cameras and guards

The suit accuses leaders of the Hindu organisation known as Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha of human trafficking and wage law violations

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People stand near the entrance to the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Robbinsville Township, New Jersey, on Tuesday. Photo: AP

Published: 5:00am, 12 May 2021Updated: 5:35am, 12 May 2021

FBI agents searched the sprawling site of a Hindu temple on Tuesday as a lawsuit filed in federal court alleged workers from marginalised communities in India were lured to the US and forced to work long hours for just a few dollars per day to help build the temple.

The lawsuit accuses the leaders of the Hindu organisation known as Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, or BAPS, of human trafficking and wage law violations.

An FBI spokesperson confirmed that agents were at the temple on “court-authorised law enforcement activity”. One of the lawyers who filed the suit said some workers had been removed from the site on Tuesday.

That lawyer, Daniel Werner, called it “shocking that this happens in our backyard”.

The entrance to the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir is seen in Robbinsville Township, New Jersey, on Tuesday. Photo: AP

“It is even more disturbing that it has gone on for years in New Jersey behind the temple’s walls,” Werner, of Decatur, Georgia, said on Tuesday outside the gates of the temple.

“This is 200 workers who were behind these fences for sometimes a year or two years or even longer, paid about US$1.20 an hour, working in hazardous conditions, not allowed to leave through these gates without being accompanied by somebody from BAPS.”