Construction workers at Bathinda AIIMS pelt cops, site office with stones
The company had promised to send workers home by May 16. When we gathered outside the company office on Saturday, the officials told us that they will be charged ₹3,000 per head for their bus journey.
LEADER OF LABOUR UNION
BATHINDA: Tensions prevailed on the premises of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bathinda, on Saturday after agitated workers, engaged in construction work here, resorted to stone pelting demanding transportation for sending them to their home states.
The workers initially pelted stones at the office of the private construction company that hired them, and later at a police vehicle when the cops arrived on the site to control violence.
One of the leaders of the labourers’ union, seeking anonymity, said the workers had requested the company officials to send them home as they found it tough to live here under the prevailing crisis amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The company had promised to send them home by May 16. “However, when the workers gathered near the company office on Saturday, the officials told them that they will be charged ₹3,000 per head for their bus journey. Expressing their inability to pay money, the workers started protesting. The company officials then called police which used force to disperse the workers,” he said.
POLICE DENY INSTANCE OF VIOLENCE
Bathinda senior superintendent of police (SSP) Nanak Singh, however, denied use of force on the labourers or any stone pelting by them.
“The workers had gathered at the site demanding arrangements for their journey and we convinced them that they will be sent home through special trains,” he said.
Meanwhile, a video has surfaced on the social media in which angry workers can be seen pelting stones on the office of the construction company. In another video, workers are seen pelting stones at a police vehicle.
A company official looking after the construction work said around 1,600 workers were engaged in the construction work when the lockdown started. “Around 300 of them have already left for their states while 1,300 are still working at the site. Construction work had resumed at the site on April 20 onward.”
The out-patient department (OPD) services at the AIIMS here started in December last year after construction of the OPD block while work on other buildings is going on.
Bathinda sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Amarinder Singh Tiwana said the AIIMS officials have been told that they will be intimated whenever a train is available to take these workers to their home states.