The ongoing protest by fresh engineers against HCL Technologies took a new turn on Tuesday with the Uttar Pradesh police intervening in the case.

The police have asked the graduates to take legal recourse instead of street protest.

The Noida Police met students on Monday and assured them a meeting with the City Magistrate within a week.

Meeting on Monday

“We will try and fix up the meeting before next Monday,” senior police official told Business Line requesting anonymity.

The official said the Noida Police have asked the HCL Management also to join the meeting with the City Magistrate to work out a possible solution.

“We were just on a peace protest in front of HCL Technologies’ Noida Sector 3 office till late evening, where the police came and have assured us they will take a serious note on this and help us out,” said one of the protestors, who did not want to be identified.

The person said the police have also assured the case may also go up to the Labour Court if their case is not settled. “If the meeting does not happen with the magistrate on Thursday, we will protest then and there,” said another unemployed engineer of HCL Tech.

Some 80 engineers gathered in front of HCL Tech’s office on Monday in Noida where the top brass of the company sits, including Vice-Chairman and Joint Managing Director Vineet Nayar and Chief Executive Officer Anant Gupta.

Still awaiting

According to these engineers, there are around 5,000 of them who were hired by the company in September 2011 from various engineering campuses across India and given Letters of Intent to join the company in a few months, but more than a year later, they are still waiting for the joining date.

However, when asked HCL Technologies, the company said the ‘number is not that much’. But at the same time it also could not share the specific number of engineers who were given LoIs. The company said “will work on it and share soon”.

>ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in

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