Factory Worker Brutally Beaten to Death in Punjab!

Rise up against the Ruthless Killings, Torture and Harassment of Workers and Systemic Attack on Trade Unions throughout the Country!!

Strung up by his legs and hands from the ceiling, upside down, and brutally beaten with an iron rod, a migrant factory worker was killed in the Focal Point Area of Amritsar by the henchmen of the factory owner last Thursday evening. The worker, hailing from Nepal and a previous resident of Bihar, was falsely accused of theft by the factory owner and taken away by his henchmen on the pretext of a dire punishment. His body was found the next day having succumbed to the injuries all over. Even four days after the gruesome incident, the police are yet to arrest the factory owner.

Ever since the BJP Government came into power, we have witnessed on one hand the systematic dilution of all labour laws and on the other, the ruthless torture and harassment of workers and an organized attack on trade unions throughout the country. Last month the police and bouncers of the management brutally attacked the striking contractual workers of the Maruti Manesar Plant, injuring several workers. The police also filed fabricated FIRs against the leading activists of the workers movement demanding equal pay for equal work. Few days back, in a shocking incident, the Hindutva forces vandalized the Indian Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) office in Greater Noida. Books, manuscripts and papers related to important trade union work were set on fire by the Sanghi perpetrators, the “crime” being that a team of trade union activists had visited the home of their colleague whose brother, Akhlaq Ahmad was brutally lynched in Bisada village, Dadri recently.

Our times are seeing a rise in organised systemic harassment and torture of workers surviving in the margins of society which is coupled with a consistent ruthless attack on the working class movements and any attempt to unionize in resistance to the corporate-communal onslaught. AISA condemns, on the strongest possible terms, the ruthless killing of the migrant labourer in Punjab and demands immediate punitive action against all the accused. We appeal to the students, workers and the progressive sections of the society to raise their voice and unite against these barbaric and inhuman acts by industrial corporates, Hindutva forces and all their allies!