CPM MPs resent police action on labourers in Chamba

Shimla, July 17 (UNI) Expressing shock over ''police repression'' on the workers of Chamera III hydel power project in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh, six CPM MPs today 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 1130 hrs 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 take 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.

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