Maruti sends joining letter to jailed worker

Sushil Kumar, who is one of the accused in the July 18 arson at Maruti Suzuki India Limited’s (MSIL) Manesar plant and is lodged in Bhondsi jail, was one of the 300 workers who got their joining letters as the plant resumed partial productions earlier this week.

This move has put the city police and MSIL management in a spot. Kumar, 25, who was one of the 91 workers arrested on the intervening night of July 18-19, has now moved court seeking bail on the grounds that the joining letter “per se is a clean cheat to him”.

A senior HR manager was killed and 100 other employees were injured in the violence.

The court of additional district and sessions judge HS Dahiya has issued a notice to the police in this regard to be replied on Saturday. The police officer concerned could not be reached for comment.

The company joining letter reached Kumar's native house at Lakhmirwala village in Haryana’s Jind district on Wednesday.

Counsel Rajendra Pathak, who is representing Kumar and 155 other accused workers, said the development exposed how the Maruti management and police were “randomly victimising innocent workers.”

“They were just picked by the police and the management too named Kumar in the FIR,” Pathak alleged.

Meanwhile, Kumar and another accused Baljinder Singh moved applications on Thursday seeking interim bail to appear in competitive examinations. While Kumar wants to take an exam for a post at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Singh wants interim bail in September to appear for an engineering entrance test in Himachal Pradesh.

“We cannot comment on the police investigation or the legal process,” said a MSIL official.