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CPI(M) resents police action on labourers

Assault on 60 CITU workers by the Chamba district police

Shimla: Expressing shock over ``police repression'' on the workers of Chamera III hydel power project in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh, six CPM MPs on Monday urged state Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh to restrain the state police from acting on the behest of the company.

The assault on 60 CITU workers by the Chamba district police and henchmen of a construction company executing the project while they were asleep in their huts on Friday at 11-30 p.m. was condemnable, they said in their letter to the Chief Minister, copies of which were also faxed to the press here.

Seeking the State Chief Minister's personal intervention in the matter, Lok Sabha MPs Santashree Chatterjee, Sujan Chakraborthy and Lakshman Seth and Rajya Sabha MPs Chittabrata Majumdar, K Chandrab Pillai and Tapan Sen said the police should not have taken action at the behest of the company.

Three CITU workers were killed, while another escaped unhurt after several unidentified people allegedly beat them with iron rods and hockey sticks at Dakog in the district before throwing them into the river following a one-day strike by the workers on June 10.

The MPs said the police action on the sleeping workers, who were demanding the arrest of people involved in the murder of three CITU workers, was an attempt to destroy ``material evidence'' since majority of the labourers assaulted on that day were witnesses in the murder case.

Alleging that some senior police officials were hand in glove with the company officials in harassing and torturing the workers, they said a few of them had direct business interest and that was the reason for the unprovoked police action of June 14.

In their letter, copies of which were also faxed to the state DGP, IGP (CID) and Dharamshala DIG, they alleged that a few of the senior officials of the construction company had masterminded the plot.

Meanwhile, state CITU spokesman Jagat Ram accused the State government of not arresting senior officials of the company H S Dhillon, Rajvir Singh and Upender Jain even though they had been named as accused in the FIR.

Instead of taking action against these people, the state police was trying to repress and torture the workers, he said.

He said the state unit of the CITU would resort to one-day strike in the last week of July against the government's failure to arrest the murderers of its activists.

Mr. Ram said the strike was against the company's failure to provide minimum wages, tunnel and tribal allowance, over time above eight hours of work and a weekly off. It would be called off after its demands were agreed to, he added. - UNI.

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CPI(M) resents police action on labourers

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