India, Feb. 27 -- The Gwalior bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court has ordered the Ashok Nagar administration to probe instances where influential people in the district may have taken over land belonging to tribals and turned them into bonded labourers.

The direction was passed on Tuesday by a bench of justices Hridesh and Anand Pathak during a hearing into a habeas corpus petition ostensibly filed by a tribal man, Chotelal Adivasi, to seek the production of his wife. In the petition, Chotelal said his wife had been missing since January 29 and the police weren't helping him find her.

His wife, Munni Bai, who was brought to the court by the Ishagarh police on Tuesday, told the bench that she had run away to her brother's house to esc...