People’s Union for Civil Liberties-Bengaluru (PUCL) and Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) have claimed that police excesses during the garment workers’ protest in April last year at Bangalore (India). This claim is based on a joint report by the aforementioned two bodies, titled ‘Thread and Tension – An account of the historic uprising of garment workers’, which was reportedly compiled after interviews with workers, police officers and union leaders. The report further added that workers were quelled with police brutality and illegal detention of women.
Also Read – Bangalore: This is what your women workers need!
If the report is to be believed, it is really sad as it states, “Despite 90 per cent of the protesters being women, no women police officers were present. All the garment workers who were interviewed, repeatedly emphasized seeing their female colleagues being violently beaten up by male policemen without justification, and this was the turning point of the protest.”
It is pertinent to mention here that Bangalore is one of the biggest apparel manufacturing and export hubs of the Indian textile and garment industry. Thousands of aggressive workers were on roads last year against the decision of the Central Government to prevent them from withdrawing employers’ contribution from Provident Fund.
