New Delhi Phone Workers Strike to Protest Ex-Official’s Intrusion

The Indian army took over the central telephone exchange in this capital city Saturday and began evicting 4,000 striking operators and staff who were protesting an assault by a pistol-packing former Cabinet minister.

Soldiers began removing more than 500 enraged sari-clad women operators who were demanding an apology from former Home Minister Prakash Chand Sethi.

Sethi, brandishing a pistol and cursing, stormed the exchange early Friday to demand that an operator put through an urgent call.

In an interview Saturday at his home, Sethi, 65, denied that he had threatened or attacked anyone, but said, “This is the worst telephone system in the world.”

The United News of India news agency said police filed preliminary charges against Sethi of trespassing, assaulting public servants and using abusive language. The telephone exchange was cordoned off and telephone officials said soldiers would man the switchboards.

Several hundred angry protesters gathered outside the exchange to express support for the strikers. Estimates of the number of soldiers involved in the action ranged from 50 to more than 300, according to eyewitnesses.

The strike, which began Friday, has crippled long-distance calls to other cities and overseas. Local service was not affected.

Sethi, a member of Parliament, was home minister for two years until 1984. That job put him in charge of administering law and order. He has headed other key ministries.

Sethi said he had booked an urgent call to Bombay at 11 p.m. Thursday. When it had not come through three hours later, he said he forced his way into the heavily guarded telephone exchange, demanding to see a supervisor.

“They couldn’t even find my booking card for 45 minutes. I told them I was an ex-minister,” Sethi said.

‘My Right as a Customer’

“They were shouting and advancing toward me,” he said. “I was only asking why they did not connect my call. It is my right as a customer. This is the worst telephone system in the world.”

The Indian telephone system is notorious for exasperating inefficiency, long delays, clogged-up switchboards and bad lines. Nearly one-third of the telephones don’t work during the monsoon season, phone officials say.

“The telephone department is a law unto itself,” said Sethi. “The operators just have tea and gossip all day anyway.”

Telephone operators said he roughed up a woman operator and a supervisor and threatened everyone.

Sethi said he was accompanied by four security guards carrying automatic weapons and that he carried his licensed revolver. He is on a Sikh terrorists’ hit-list, and said he carried a gun that night because he had fewer bodyguards than usual.