DGM charred to death by agitated workers

By Mahendra Darjee & Debadas Pradhan www.indusvalleytimes.com Bolangir/Bhubaneswar, March 3: In a gruesome incident, agitated employees of a steel plant on Thursday burnt alive their deputy general manager at Orissa’s Titlagarh town, nearly 450 km from here. According to police, some suspended employees of Powmex steel plant who were demonstrating in front of the company’s local office stopped DGM Radheshyam Ray’s vehicle when he was on his way home during the lunch break. Then the mob asked the driver and other accompanying officials to get down, poured kerosene on the vehicle and set it on fire before fleeing the spot. On being informed by Ray’s driver, company’s security personnel immediately rushed to the spot and rescued Ray in critical conditions from the burning vehicle. The DGM was first taken to the local Titlagarh sub-divisional hospital which referred him to Indira Gandhi Hospital, Rourkela. As his condition worsened on the way, he was taken to Bolangir district headquarters hospital where doctors declared him brought dead. “Ray had received 90 per cent burn injury. Despite our serious efforts, we could not save his life. He breathed his last at 5.20pm,” Dr Usharani Das of the Bolangir district headquarters hospital, said. According to Bolangir district superintendent of police Ajay Sarangi, labor unrest was going on in the plant for the past few days after the company authorities suspended some employees a few days ago. “The suspended workers were staging demonstrations for the past few days. Their anger reached the peak when the company officials dismissed some of them on Wednesday. And today, the agitating employees committed the crime by burning alive the DGM,” Mr Sarangi said. The SP said two special squads had been formed to apprehend the accused. “The special squads have been constituted to nab the accused. We are confident that the culprits would be apprehended soon,” SP Mr Sarangi claimed. www.indusvalleytimes.com