Janata Dal (United) today appealed to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to institute a probe into the police action against workers of a private factory in Yanam recently, during which a union leader is claimed to have been killed.
The police firing during the Jan 27 incident had also resulted in a good number of workers suffering injuries, President of the Puducherry unit of the Janata Dal (U), R Arumugham alias Saravanan, said in a release here.
The frenzied workers of Regency Ceramics, a tile manufacturing company, went on the rampage on Jan 27 after their leader M S Murali Mohan was allegedly killed in police action outside the factory and attacked the residence of President (Operations) K C Chandrasekhar.
The company official suffered head injuries in the incident and later died.
Police had opened fire after using canes to disperse the violent workers who torched the vehicles of educational institutions run by the factory, electronic goods and other properties following the death of Mohan, a dismissed worker.
\ Saravanan said the government should also ensure that sufficient number of officers were posted in Labour Department to oversee the managements of various industrial units in the Union Territory.
Migrant workers engaged by private units were being exploited and were made to work for more than 12 hours, which is against labour law and ethics of labour welfare, he charged. There should be monitoring of such units and workers should be brought under eight hour work schedule, he added.