Dhanalakshmi with her mother. | Photo Credit: BASHKARAN N Little Dhanalakshmi held out her tiny hand to show her missing left ring finger. Her finger got cut by a brick cutting wire, said her mother 22-year-old Sumathy. It was a grim late evening on April 23. Outside the RDO’s office in Krishnagiri, five families of Irula tribes, including 10 children, aged between 1 and 6, tired, unwashed and hungry were seated at the verandah; men masked, women and children unmasked amid a raging pandemic. They had been rescued from a brick kiln in Madathaanur in Pochampally taluk of Krishnagiri district that day. Earlier, an activist from the National Adivasi Solidarity Council (NASC), a grassroots organisation working with tribals called