Maruti Suzuki workers to financially help kin of jailed ex-staffers

Maruti Suzuki's Gurugram plant workers will on Thursday hand over a total Rs 45.5 lakh to the families of 13 former company workers who have been jailed for the 2012 violence at the company's Manesar plant, a union leader said on Wednesday.

The company's Gurugram plant's worker union (Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union) General Secretary Kuldeep Janghu said the funds had been raised from over 2,200 workers by collecting Rs 2,000 from each.

"Amounts of Rs 3.5 lakh will be handed over to responsible kin of the each families at the union office located in the factory premises in Sector 18 here on Old Delhi road," Janghu told IANS.

The Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU) of Manesar plant on October 14, 2017 had also handed over a total of Rs 71.5 lakh (Rs 5.5 lakh each) to the families of 13 jailed former company workers.

Workers of the Manesar plant had then contributed Rs 5,000 each for extending financial support to the families of their former colleagues whose financial condition was very poor, union leaders said.

On April 16, 2016, Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union handed over Rs 50,000 each to 31 affected families.

On July 18, 2017 the workers union of Sunbeam Auto Co gave away over Rs 75,000 to each of 13 families.

On March 10, 2017, Gurugram's Additional District and Sessions Judge R.P. Goel had held 31 former workers guilty of murder and attempt to murder, among other offences, at the Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) Manesar plant on the evening of July 18, 2012.

On March 18 last year, the court awarded life imprisonment to 13 former workers for violence and rioting.

The court also sentenced four accused to five-year imprisonment and said the sentence already served by the remaining 14 accused was sufficient.

Maruti Suzuki Human Resource Department General Manager Ashwin Kumar Dev was killed and over four dozen persons injured in the violence.

--IANS

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