KARACHI: At least three labourers were killed when Police opened fire on workers outside the Feroze Sultan Industries in the SITE yesterday [June 7]. A judicial inquiry has been ordered… . The bodies of Raza Khan, and an unidentified worker, were in the possession of the Police, while that of the third labourer killed was taken away by the workers to the Pathan Colony. Police were trying to recover the body from Pathan Colony till our going to the Press. At least five injured persons, including three policemen, were brought to the hospital. ...

...[T]he trouble started yesterday … when the workers of the Feroze Sultan Industries — scene of tension for a long time — demanded their pay along with the two-and-a-half per cent profit as laid down in the labour policy. It was pay day… .

The management, according to the workers, expressed inability to pay the salaries and their share from the workers’ participation fund. Thereupon the workers confined the mill executives to their rooms and asked them to come to terms. While their representatives were negotiating, the rest of the workers stayed out. …Police were called in by the management. Police arrested 14 persons for “gheraoing” the executives of the mill.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2022