4 held for vandalising Chinese phone manufacturing unit in Noida

Four men were arrested Friday on charges of rioting and assaulting police personnel after a scuffle at a Chinese smartphone manufacturing facility, police said.

On Thursday, over a thousand workers of the Hipad Technology India, which assembles and tests Xiaomi phones, restored to violence after around 200 of them were allegedly sacked without notice.

Apparently peeved over the situation, the workers went on a rampage at around 10 am, pelting stones at the building and barging into the facility in Sector 63.

"Four workers have been arrested for the violence, throwing stones and damaging the office. They have also been booked for indecent behaviour and scuffling with police officials and obstructing them in the duty," Station House Officer (SHO), Phase 3, Akhilesh Tripathi said.

He said there was no complaint from either side but the police had taken suo motu cognisance because the incident had caused a law and order situation in the vicinity.

Those arrested were identified as Yogesh Kumar, Akhilesh Kumar, Deepak Pandey and Yogesh Pal - all under 30 years of age, he said.

They were booked under Indian Penal Code sections 147 (rioting), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and related offences, the SHO said.

Meanwhile, the company's officials in China have written to the Indian government, the Chinese Embassy in India, the police and administration in Noida thanking them for "the quick response and effective handling" of the incident and services to the enterprise.

The Hipad Technology, in a statement, said it had informed the vendor's company (which was providing them workers) that post-Diwali the material management in the company was delayed by about 10 days due to international transportation, affecting the production.

"To prevent loss of employees in the key positions, Hipad India had arranged for human resources department and the vendor's company to carry out a joint training. We had clearly informed the vendors our plan that we will ask these employees to return to the factory and continue to work in December," it said.

Officials at the Labour Department, who visited the facility Thursday, had said that it was a case of "miscommunication" on the company's part.

"Due to shortage of raw material after Diwali, the company had asked the vendors to tell the workers that they would be rested for a few days, but not sacked," Assistant Labour Commissioner Harish Chandra Singh said Friday.

He said his department along with other administration and police officials had a meeting with the company and its three vendors Friday.

"One of the units of the factory would begin Saturday and the remaining ones would go operational from Monday," he said.