Rage rises in India over "barbaric" police beatings

GURGAON, India - New protests erupted on streets outside the Indian capital and in parliament on Tuesday, a day after dramatic TV images showed policemen beating hundreds of protesting Honda workers with bamboo sticks.

On Monday, policemen were seen hitting hundreds of workers with canes after surrounding them and making them sit. Many were seen lying on the ground, bleeding from their head.

Analysts said the clashes in the upmarket industrial township of Gurgaon in Haryana state, just outside New Delhi, could deter investors. With its gleaming high-rise office blocks and swanky shopping malls, Gurgaon is seen as a symbol of the new India.

Officials said about 100 workers of Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India Ltd, which is owned by Japan's Honda Motor Co, were injured and about half had to be hospitalised after a march turned violent. The workers were demanding the reinstatement of dismissed and suspended colleagues.

Media and politicians put the number of injured higher.

"People were being thrown in the gutter," Vijay Kumar Malhotra, a senior lawmaker of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party said in the lower house of parliament. "The Haryana government should be dismissed."

The clashes started after protesting workers of the company had beaten up policemen, attacked government property and burned an official's jeep earlier on Monday.

On Tuesday, angry relatives threw stones and scuffled with police at a hospital in Gurgaon where some of the injured had been taken, witnesses said.

The police replied with tear gas shells and a cane charge.

"Where is my brother, where is my brother!" screamed a distraught woman. She grabbed a bamboo cane from a policeman and started hitting him before being calmed down by others.

In parts of Gurgaon, police fought battles with stone-throwing protesters, slapping and punching some.

"Shame! Shame!" shouted lawmakers from the opposition as well as the government's communist coalition allies, in parliament.

"This is an atrocious and barbaric attack on workers by the police and reflects the establishment's neo-liberal policy, which is contemptuous of workers' rights," D. Raja of the Communist Party of India told Reuters.

India's communist parties shore up the Congress Party-led government headed by reformist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who expressed "deep anguish" over the violence.

The government said it was investigating how the situation spiralled out of control.

"If you do not protect workers' rights, how do you dream of becoming a superpower?" Brinda Karat, another communist leader, asked on NDTV television news.
The communists have called for the police officers involved in the clashes to be dismissed and for a Supreme Court probe.

More than 60 workers were charged with rioting and preventing public servants from doing their duty, an official said.

Analysts said the violence and the lack of simple and clearly enforced labour laws could deter potential investors.

"This issue in the next few days will greatly influence how prospective foreign investors view the industrial relations risk in India," said Saumitra Chaudhuri, economic adviser with domestic credit rating agency ICRA.

- REUTERS