THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Three employees of Muthoot Finance, who were locked inside the Kunnukuzhy branch office by agitators allegedly affiliated to CITU, were released by Cantonment police on Monday.
Shaken by the whole experience, staffers said they were ‘punished’ for defying the ongoing strike called by Muthoot Finance Employees’ Union (MFEU) under the aegis of Non-Banking and Private Finance Employees Association (NPFEA). This was the culmination of the incidents that began early in the morning. When they came to open the branch they were stopped by the striking employees. But they contacted the police and two people were taken into preventive custody and later released on bail.
However, once the police left the branch premises, employees were locked inside the office. Striking employees even brought the shutters down.
The employees inside the branch were released after police officers returned to the scene. “This was not the first time that agitators tried to obstruct our work. On Saturday too staffers affiliated to trade union stopped us from working. Because of the strike call, we have been working after the office hours for the past 25 days.
Today we attempted to work during normal business hours. There are people approaching us to take back their pledged gold. We cannot stop working all of a sudden,” said branch manager Suma G. Cantonment police confirmed the incident. “We were approached on Saturday too and we had diffused the situation. The employees were locked inside when we reached. As of now, we don’t know who locked them inside the branch.”
CITU state president Anathalavattom Anandan said that he was not aware of any such incident. “The branches have been closed for some time now. I am not aware of any such incident happening here,” he told Express.