Aamir Khan intervenes; Federation of Western Indian Cine Employees calls off strike

It was a call from Aamir Khan to police commissioner Rakesh Maria that secured the release of the five detained members of FWICE Kamlesh Pandey, Dilip Pithva, Zahid Sheikh, Feroz Khan Raja and Sudhakar Sharma as reported by us yesterday. The five were allegedly illegally detained yesterday at BKC police station after FIRs were registered against them under stringent IPC sections 353, 149 and 151. The same were apparently diluted to Section 186 of IPC after Aamir' call to the police commissioner which finally secured them bail. In a press conference held today, all members except Sudhakar Shetty were present. Addressing the media, all the members earnestly requested support in fighting the rowdiness of Gangeshwar Shrivastav who has been causing trouble for all the federation members. Said Kamlesh, the President of FWICE, "The major issue is that of corruption created by Gangeshwar Shrivastav who is the chief mischief maker. He has been stalling shoots, forcibly collecting haftas and terrorising everyone. He was debarred once and then later expelled from the Allied Mazdoor Union. But he is reluctant to let go the post he once held because of the more than 36 crore rupees that the corpus of Allied Mazdoor Union holds. He is not ready to vacate his office and nor is he ready to give keys. Complaints after complaints and FIRs have been registered in many police stations against him and yet he is roaming scot free." Gangeshwar was the same person against whom the federation had protested last year. The situation hasn't changed since the last one year and it is his new terror tactics that has made the federation members concerned. As per Kamlesh, Gangeshwar approached the registrar of trade unions and demanded that FWICE be declared illegal and all its members be expelled. "He approached Ashok Dhonte, the registrar of Trade union to register a complaint seeking to declare the federation illegal and that he has been expelled illegally. We don't know what pressure he was under but that gentleman (Registrar) was going to give an order in Gangeshwar's favour and Gangeshwar was dictating the order." Continuing in the same vein, Kamlesh said, "When on 10th February, we took the reply before the Registrar and Gangeshwar was already there trying to get the registration cancelled. We then entered into a meeting with the registrar and someone from Gangeshwar's gang passed some unparliamentary remarks against us which snowballed the matter into a big thing but we never assaulted anyone. I am a writer and my hand is meant for writing and not fighting. Then cops came and asked us to come with them to the police station. Once there we were detained under sections 353, 149, 151 and held like common criminals. Police didn't give us a chance to offer our replies. Then all the bodies workers came there and protested. We never wanted the strike and it is the workers who decided to strike to support all this wrongdoings." Director Rakesh Omprakash Mehra rang up Kamlesh to offer his support post which Aamir too intervened. All the members including Kamlesh and Dilip Pithva have now made a fervent appeal to the state government and police to help them deal with the menace called Gangeshwar. They plan to approach the Chief Minister and other top ministers in their fight against this one man who obviously seems to be enjoying great power from sources unknown. FWICE also urged action to be taken against the registrar for conspiring with Gangeshwar to illegally disband FWICE. Meanwhile, there will be no strike as it was called off at 6pm today and work will resume as normal from tomorrow.