Six persons were arrested Wednesday, a day after a group of disgruntled employees from mobile company Vivo’s assembling unit in Greater Noida clashed with the company’s security personnel, police said.
On Tuesday afternoon, over 100 contractual employees of the company had gathered on its premises, angered at the alleged series of mass lay-offs. Clashes followed, and an FIR was registered by police late Tuesday night against unknown persons.
On Wednesday, the company’s premises remained heavily fortified with police and private security personnel positioned to prevent further unrest following the arrests.
“Six people have been arrested after an FIR was registered, at Ecotech 1 police station, on the basis of a complaint filed by the company. These people were detained by our police team when they reached the spot on Tuesday,” said Nishank Sharma, DSP, Greater Noida (2nd).
Those arrested have been charged under IPC sections 148 (rioting), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), 379 (theft) and 352 (criminal assault), police said.
At a monthly salary of around Rs 7,000, production line operators at Vivo work in an eight-hour shift. Most take up “rooms” in nearby areas of Pari Chowk, Haldwani, Salarpur and travel to work every day by buses.
“These are contractual workers who are hired by a third party. Their issue is that they were fired without any prior notice. They lead a hand-to-mouth existence. This is the fourth time that such a situation arose when they were fired without prior notice. Today, around 50 of them were laid off. We have asked the management to ensure that the employees are given a month’s notice or at least one month’s salary when such a step is taken,” DSP Sharma said.
