Workers protest ‘insult’ to flag, Chinese official booked

NOIDA: Employees of the manufacturing unit of Chinese mobile phone-maker Oppo in Noida’s Sector 63 boycotted work and protested against a Chinese official of the company for allegedly disrespecting the Indian national flag for eight hours, and withdrew stir only after a case was filed against him.
They official, Suhahu, was accused tearing a poster with a picture of the Indian flag and throwing it in a dustbin.
Shouting “Bharat Mata ki Jai”, employees initially pasted a poster of the Indian flag on the wall of the main building of the company office as a mark of protest that lasted nearly eight hours starting from around Monday midnight. Later, they pasted several such posters on the perimeter wall of the building. They also blocked the road outside the Oppo office in A-154, Sector 63.

When ASP Gaurav Grover and other police officers, who reached the spot around 6am on Tuesday, tried to control the protesters they did not relent till an FIR was lodged against the official.
Sumit Upadhyay, an employee, said, “Around 3.30pm on Monday, Suhahu was carrying out an inspection of the unit when he tore the posters of the flag and threw themin a dustbin. When some employees objected to the act, he didn’t pay heed to them.”
News spread among night shift staffers as well when they arrived around 8pm. Work started getting disrupted around midnight when employees started considering their next move and bought a large number of posters of the Indian flag in the market. They boycotted work around 1am and walked out of the unit.
Grover told TOI an FIR has been lodged against the official for disrespecting the Indian flag based on a written complaint from the employees. The FIR has been lodged under The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act.
Meanwhile, Oppo management officials reached the office on Tuesday morning and spoke to the employees. An official statement from the company said, “We at OPPO India are paying serious attention to this issue. We deeply regret this unfortunate incident and are extending all our cooperation to the authorities concerned and will take appropriate action. OPPO, as a brand, has deep respect for India. It is strongly rooted as well as localised in the country and 99% of our employees are Indians.”