Hundreds of Maruti and other factory workers demonstrated at a protest march and public hearing on the recent conviction of their colleagues by a trial court in Gurugram in the widely-known Maruti case. Workers, students and intellectuals present at the meeting termed the conviction of Maruti workers “extremely unjust and unfair".

On 10 March, a trial court in Gurugram had convicted 31 Maruti workers of the 148 who were under trial. Thirteen of them were convicted for murder and 18 for causing serious injuries to management officers. Another 117 who had already spent four years in jail were acquitted.

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Talking to The Statesman, Sunny from automobile industry contract workers union said, “The evidence presented in the court against convicted Maruti workers was weak in nature. The witnesses could not identify any of the convicted workers but despite this they were given punishment. This judgment makes a mockery of the belief that the judicial system is equal for all. What we are seeing today is that no management official is ever punished for exploiting the rights of workers in broad daylight and mocking at the existing labour laws, but workers are given life sentences for crimes that they never committed."

Simran, a leader of Bigul Mazdoor Dasta, said the judgement is clearly in favour of the capitalist class in the country. He said, "this comes at a time when people like Aseemanand are set free despite enormous evidence against them and despite Aseemanand himself confessing that he was involved in terror activities. It is the age of ironies.”

Pointing to loopholes in the judgement, she said, “It is shocking that all those convicted for murder are in the leading bodies of unions. The clash took place on 18 July 2012 at around 7:20 pm, police was deployed outside the factory at around 11 a m but it was not allowed to enter the premises as long as the situation went out of control. In the First Information Report it is mentioned that almost 400 to 500 people entered the Human Resource premises equipped with sticks and rods but none of the witnesses testified to it. “

The protest meeting and public hearing was attended by industry contract workers union, Naujawan Bharat Sabha, Omax workers , Honda workers among other organisations.