Maruti Verdict Is A Vindication Of The Truth
In the trial
court judgement on 10 March 2017, 117 workers of the automobile company Maruti
Suzuki's factory in Manesar, Gurgaon, India were acquitted of a murder charge.
18 workers were convicted of minor offences while 13 – all leaders of the
Maruti union – have been convicted of murder and await the quantum of
punishment, to be declared on March 17, 2017.
The trial
court verdict is a partial victory and vindication of the truth: the very fact
that 117 workers have been acquitted exposes the hollow, vindictive and
arbitrary nature of the entire prosecution case. The fact that most of the
workers have been proved innocent is a triumph of the Maruti workers' struggle
in a very unequal battle against the nexus of the management, the entire
capitalist class, the State and the corporate media that had painted them all
as a murderous mob.
The 13
workers convicted for 'murder' are all – unsurprisingly – leaders of the Union.
Leaders of the Trade Unions in Maruti in Manesar and Pricol in Coimbatore are
being punished for sticking their necks out and daring to lead the struggle of
workers to form a Union and demand implementation of labour laws.
Laughably,
prosecution witnesses in the Maruti case named accused workers in an orderly,
alphabetical manner. That is, police arrested workers indiscriminately, listed
and grouped them alphabetically, and then assigned each group an 'eyewitness'
who claimed to have seen them 'rioting'! The State appointed a very high
profile lawyer on exorbitantly high fees - Special Public Prosecutor KTS Tulsi
– to head the prosecution team.
The Madras
High Court recently overturned the conviction of 6 of 8 workers of the
automobile company Pricol's Coimbatore factory. The High Court retained the
conviction for two of the Pricol 8, but reduced their sentence to life
imprisonment. The Maruti and Pricol workers plan to challenge the convictions
of their comrades in higher courts.
Not only must the struggle for acquittal of
all Maruti and Pricol comrades continue, we must also demand action against
police officers who falsely implicated large numbers of innocent workers in
murder cases without the slightest iota of proof.
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