Protests break out in Noida after Chinese national disrespects Tricolour

NOIDA: Around 2,000 employees of city's Sector 63 manufacturing unit of Chinese mobile phone company Oppo protested against an official for allegedly insulting the Indian flag Raising slogans like “Bharat Mata ki Jai”, the protesters pasted a poster of the Indian flag on the main building of the company and protested for almost nine hours.Slogans mentioning “Modi” and “Yogi” too were raised.Police teams reached the spot around 7 am and tried to control the protesters but the angry employees refused to relent till an FIR was lodged against the official concerned.Later, ASP Gaurav Grover and other police officers tried to pacify the protesters and they subsequently unblocked the road outside the office at A 154, Sector 63.“On Monday, an inspection of the unit was being done by Suhahu, a Chinese national and senior official of the company at around 3:30 pm when he allegedly tore apart the posters of the flag and put them into a dustbin.When some of the employees saw him, they objected to the act but he did not listen to them,” said Sumit Upadhyay, one of the employees of the company.Since the matter began in the day shift, it soon reached the employees working in the night shift when they reached the unit at 8pm. Employees gathered at the unit around midnight and brought posters of the Indian flag from a nearby market. They covered the unit’s building from top to bottom with the posters.ASP Gaurav Grover told TOI that an FIR has been lodged against the concerned official for disrespecting the Indian flag on a written complaint from the employees.The FIR has been lodged under The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, police said.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 co-operation to the concerned authorities and will take appropriate action. OPPO as a brand has deep respect for India and is strongly rooted as well as localized in the country and 99% of our employees are Indians.”