KARACHI, Jan 8: A large number of workers staged a demonstration on Tuesday to press for the release of 11 workers of Pearl continental Hotel who have been taken into custody two days back.

Speakers at the demonstration, organized jointly by the Trade Unions Alliance and the International Union of Food at the Karachi Press Club, said that these workers had been taken into custody and were being tortured.

They said that the arrests had followed a fire that broke out in the five star hotel’s laundry a few days back.

They demanded that all those union leaders and other members who had been taken into custody be released immediately.

Meanwhile, the Civil Lines police said that a FIR of the fire incident, nominating unknown persons, had been registered, and so far nobody had been taken into custody by the area police.

However, the CIA sources said that it was also conducting an investigation into the matter and 10 to 12 people had been taken into custody for interrogation. Some of them had already been released, but a few of them were still in custody at the CIA Centre.