Kanpur: Much like other centres, much of the conversation in Kanpur in the five OFB units, Field Gun Factory, Small Arms Factory (SAF), Ordnance Equipment Factory (OEF), Ordnance Parachute Factory (OPF), and Ordinance Factory (OF), is actually about the right to protest itself.
On August 3, the government passed the Essential Defence Services Act 2021, and a gazette notification on this was issued on August 12, barring employees working in the sector from protesting.
'This has denied us the right to protest something that is fatal for the factories and the 7000 employees in Kanpur,' said KK Tiwari, general secretary, SAF employees' union.
'We were protesting tooth and nail before this act was enforced. Now everyone is scared.'
On August 22, the act was challenged in the Delhi High Court, which did not stay the government's decision.
'We are moving to the Supreme Court as the act discriminates against the right to equality.
Why such an order denying us the right to protest was enforced in [the] defence establishment, not others?
This gagging is deliberate to ruin this sector and help the private players usurp it up,' alleged Mukesh Singh of Bhartiya Pratiraksha Mazdoor Sangh.
