Bardhaman Dot Com News Bureau
Durgapur, 26 Aug, 04: Just after yesterday's violence at PCBL factory, the security guards of a sponge iron factory were severely wounded allegedly by the staffs engaged by a contractor early this morning in Angadpur industrial complex, Durgapur. They were rushed to the Durgapur Steel hospital in critical condition. The factory authority has lodged official complaint against the contract labourers and the contractor concerned. The police said that they have absconded. Early this morning violence erupted in Shova Ispat, a private owned sponge iron unit in Durgapur under the same Coke-Oven PS when a group of locals in Angadpur raided the factory premises and beat up the security guard and officers today. The security guards were confused when the mass armed with lathi and rod forcibly entered the premises and attacked the on duty staffs. The chief security officer of the factory, Swaroop Mukherjee and another security guard, Ashok Singh were severely wounded and the company cook, Jiten Mukherjee sustained head injury when he came in to the rescue of the security guards. The factory premises turned to a battlefield as the armed mass was after the security men. The security guards of the private factory had arrested two contract workers robbing factory articles on last Tuesday. Yesterday they were granted bail by the Durgapur Court. 

The SP, Burdwan, Niraj Kumar Singh told Bardhaman Dot Com that "the contractor workers organised the attack and assembled in the factory premises out of grudge. The security men called up the police that reached the factory after the mass had fled the scene."

Meanwhile the CPI-M and the police ruled out that today’s incident was a result of any Industrial Relation crisis. Debabrata Banerjee, member, district CITU secretariat said, ‘the matter was not linked with the production-productivity of that factory. The production was not hampered. It was a result of certain dispute between the factory and the contractor concerned.’ The factory lodged complaint against Ajit Pal, the contractor who fled the scene. The accused labourers too also have fled the scene. The CITU district committee today stated that in any circumstances production would have to be sustained in the factory. Today’s realisation, according to Biswanath Parial, the vice president of the INTTUEC union in the PCBL, ‘would have prevented yesterday’s production loss in PCBL, if CITU could restrain impatience.’ he added.