More than 100 Indian workers were camped in the open outside their country's embassy in Malaysia on Thursday to protest alleged ill treatment, including unpaid wages and physical assault, by their employers in this country.
The 130 electronics factory workers arrived with luggage before
dawn on Wednesday and settled on the sidewalk outside the Indian High Commission, or embassy, refusing to leave until they are paid their back wages and air tickets to their hometown of Chennai.
They said that their factory managers were holding their passports, a standard procedure applied to foreign workers in Malaysia.
Factory officials were not immediately available for comment. Foreign workers in Malaysia often complain of poor treatment, but rarely hold public mass protests.
The Indians, who worked for two companies in the southern state of Johor, said they had paid about 7,500 ringgit to an agent in India to secure the jobs for a salary of about 750 ringgit a month.
But since arriving here in September and October, they were paid only 50 to 200 ringgit a month for making electronics components for compact disc players and microchips for identity cards, the Indians said.
"We hardly had enough money to buy food. When I asked the employer why we are being paid so little I was assaulted," said Seeneivasan Kalniyappan, 23. He said factory managers had slapped and kicked him several times.
Company guards and officials also assaulted many other workers, said Vijayan Padavappan, a Malaysian lawyer with a local non-government group, who is helping the workers.
He said the workers are demanding that the embassy help them get their back wages, passports and air tickets to Chennai. "They are afraid of being assaulted again by company officials," he said.
An Indian High Commission official said the agent who got the jobs for the workers has been summoned urgently to resolve the problem. The agent happened to be in neighbouring Singapore on Thursday and is now on his way to Kuala Lumpur, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
He said the high commission provided the workers with food on Thursday, and was trying to arrange for shelter.