Staff Report
KARACHI: More than 34 employees of the closed Dadu and Thatta Sugar Mills including four women were detained as 300 of them tried to make their way to Governor House to register their protest. The mills were closed down and the employees have not been paid their salaries.
Seven workers, including two women Sakina Samoo and Jannat Samoo and three children Meena, Zairah and Ashiq, were injured. The women were grabbed by the hair and their clothes were ripped during the police action.
The police blocked the road to Governor House but the protestors kept moving ahead, following which the police started beating them with sticks and batons. Five women and their children and ten men were seriously injured. The police started bundling them into their mobile vans and during the scuffle some children were separated from their mothers. “I’ve lost my son, please stop beating me,” cried one woman as the police tried to arrest her.
“This was state terrorism by the Karachi police on directives of the Sindh government; 250 of our workers, including four women, were beaten up and forced into the police mobile van,” said Muhammad Ali, a worker of Dadu Sugar Mill.
He said that this was not the first time the police has beaten them. On April 28, 2006, the police used baton charge in front of the Sindh Assembly, while the session was in progress. “The Sindh government also constituted a committee of senior ministers including Sardar Ahmed, Manzoor Panhwar Saddaqat Jatoi and Iftekhar Chaudhry, who promised the workers they would address their problems. But not a single problem has so far been resolved by the government’s committee,” said Muhammad Ali.
“Following the failure of negotiations with the provincial ministers, we decided to march from Karachi Press Club to Governor House today. It was a peaceful demonstration and a large number of women with their children also participated in the demo.”
They have been on a token hunger strike outside the Karachi Press Club since April 24. They announced another march from the Karachi Press Club to Chief Minister House Monday.