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India detains labour leaders in state power strike

LUCKNOW: Police detained labour leaders of 87,000 employees striking against power sector reforms in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, officials said on Saturday.

The arrested leaders, Shailendra Dubey, convenor of Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board (UPSEB) employees' joint action committee and A.K. Singh, general secretary of the U.P. Power Engineers Association, have been held under the National Security Act, they said.

The government had launched a hunt for the two leaders after they were said to be in hiding.

The strikers are opposing a plan to convert the UPSEB into a company and break it into three entities for generation, distribution and transmission of power.

The provincial government, which has resolved to carry on with reforms and oppose the strikers, said on Friday that workers must return to work by Sunday or lose their jobs.

Officials said fresh recruitments were expected from Sunday.

Dubey, who spoke to Reuters at a local police station, said there was no ground to detain him.

"I fail to understand what crime I have committed that an anti-terrorist law should be invoked against us," he said.

"Well, let them try these repressive measures. They will not succeed in breaking the strike," he said.

"They have provoked our counterparts across the country to go ahead with their plans of a nationwide strike from the midnight of January 23. Initially it was proposed to be a day's token strike, but the All India Power Engineers Association is now contemplating a longer agitation," Dubey said.

The strike has crippled large parts of the state, India's most populous, with drinking water supplies also hit by the power crisis.

The state government has dismissed more than 370 engineers and 5,300 others since the start of the strike, and says nearly 16,000 workers have returned to work. -Reuters