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Punjabi farm labourer’s death: Italian employer arrested on murder charges
The Sikh casual farm labourer died in a hospital in Rome two days later after being airlifted there when he was eventually found.
Italian police have arrested the owner of the agriculture company who dumped a 31-year-old Indian worker on the road without medical assistance after his arm was severed by heavy farm machinery, causing his death, a tragic incident that shocked the country and its leadership.
Satnam Singh was abandoned by his employer after a strawberry wrapping machine severed his arm in Lazio, near Rome, last month and died due to “copious bleeding”, the ANSA news agency reported.
The Sikh casual farm labourer died in a hospital in Rome two days later after being airlifted there when he was eventually found.
Carabinieri police in Latina, a largely agricultural province south of Rome, arrested farm owner Antonello Lovato after prosecutors bumped up the original suspected crime of manslaughter to homicide with “malice afterthought,” a statement from Latina prosecutors said.
Italian daily Corriere della Sera quoted the arrest warrant signed by Judge Giuseppe Molfese as saying Lovato was driving the tractor that was pulling the nylon-wrapping machine, and then abandoned the bleeding Singh, leaving him outside his home.
Prosecutors said in a statement that the Sikh farmer, who died of a massive haemorrhage in a Rome hospital, “would in all likelihood have been saved if he had been promptly assisted”.
“We were waiting for this news, we were angry,” the president of the Lazio Indian community, Gurmukh Singh, said.
“The worst thing (Lovato) did was to leave him outside his home instead of taking him to hospital,” he was quoted as saying.
“An accident can happen, but not calling for medical assistance is unacceptable,” he said.
Singh’s death has spurred outrage at gangmastering, which is widespread in Italy, especially in the south of the country, and modern forms of slavery. Gangmastering and the often violent exploitation of migrant farm labourers is a chronic problem in Italy, especially in the south.
According to an earlier report, Lovato loaded Singh and his wife into a van and left them by the side of the road near their home. Singh’s severed arm was placed in a fruit crate.
Meanwhile, Singh’s widow Soni, who was treated for shock after the incident, received a special ‘justice’ stay permit to end her illegal status in Italy, it said.
On June 26, India asked Italy to take prompt action against those responsible for Singh’s death.
Muktesh Pardeshi, Secretary [CPV & OIA], conveyed to Luigi Maria Vignali, the Director General for Italian Citizens Abroad and Migration Policies, India’s “deep concern” about the death of Singh, the Indian Embassy in Italy said in a post on X. He “called for prompt action against those responsible. Embassy is in contact with the family of Satnam Singh for consular help & transportation of mortal remains,” the mission added.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said last month that Singh, one of thousands of Indian immigrants who work the fields in the country, was the victim of “inhuman acts”.
“These are inhumane acts that do not belong to the Italian people. I hope that this barbarity will be punished harshly,” she said following a Cabinet meeting.
Italy’s Minister of Labour, Marina Calderone, said the death of Singh had been an “act of barbarity”.
Opposition 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Giuseppe Conte had urged Meloni to act to stamp out brutal gangmastering.
Latina hosts thousands of immigrant labourers, many of them Sikhs, working picking fruit and vegetables for the local ‘agro-mafia’.
