NOIDA: Retrenched workers of a Moser Baer plant in Noida have alleged they were confined inside the factory for around seven hours on Monday so that they could not protest before the Prime Minister who had come to the city along with South Korean President to inaugurate a Samsung plant.Police have denied the allegation, saying the workers had assembled on the plant’s premises to hold a “symbolic protest” after being denied permission to agitate near the venue of the PM’s programme.Around 2,200 workers had been laid off in November last year when the company shut down the plant in Noida. The workers claimed they had not been paid their dues and wanted to hand over a memorandum to the Prime Minister on Monday. A purported video showing some people inside the factory compound is being circulated on social media.Jaipal Singh, one of the protestors, can be heard saying in the video they wanted to meet the Prime Minister but police prevented them by confining them to the plant. Some of the laid off employees suggested they had wanted to stage a protest in Sector 81 but were not allowed to do so as it was near the programme venue.Praveen Nagar, one of the former employees at the forefront of the agitation, said the retrenched workers had not been paid their dues since the plant shut down last November and they were finding it difficult to make ends meet. The employees have been protesting off and on at the district collectorate in Surajpur since November and demanding that their dues be cleared.Police sources said a “few constables and officers from provincial armed constabulary (PAC)” had been deployed outside the plant to ensure the employees did not exit the premises. The protesters, however, said multiple police vans had been patrolling the area.The employees alleged they were allowed to leave the factory around 7pm. They eventually handed over their memorandum to officer on special duty at Yamuna Authority, Shailendra Bhatia, and circle officer Amit Srivastava.SP (rural) Ashish Srivastava said the employees had been told in advance they would not be allowed to meet the PM. “They wanted to demonstrate and gathered at the plant in symbolic protest,” he said.A Moser Baer official said the case was pending with the National Company Law Tribunal, which has appointed a resolution professional for the issue. “The management has no role now,” the official said.

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