Labour rights: Factory worker beaten for taking time off

Boss and hired thug attack worker with iron rods.

LAHORE:

A factory worker is in intensive care with serious injuries after he was brutally beaten for over half an hour by the owner and his men, apparently for taking his weekly day off.

Shoaib Khalid, 25, was called in to work at a steel mill in Rasheedpura, Harbanspura police jurisdiction, on his day off on Thursday because the factory was short-staffed, said his co-worker and cousin Muhammad Waseem.

But when Shaoib arrived, factory owner Muhammad Khalid reacted angrily, asking him why he had taken a day off when the factory was short of workers, Waseem said. Shoaib said he had informed the shift in-charge that he wouldn’t be coming in, but the boss wasn’t appeased.

Waseem said that Shoaib was then beaten with iron rods by the factory owner and two other men for over 30 minutes. “He [the owner] had hired a man for the purpose,” he said.He was later taken to Services Hospital, where he was still unconscious when this report was filed on Thursday evening. He is expected to survive. Waseem said that Muhammad Khalid was a violent man who had also once thrashed his brother Tayyab. He said that he would lodge a complaint with the police against Khalid for beating his cousin. Assistant Sub Inspector Muhammad Akram said that no FIR had been registered yet. He said the police were waiting for Shoaib to regain consciousness and record his statement. He said that doctors had said that Shoaib was out of danger.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2011.