Sacked workers open Swami Ramdev’s bag of bones

NEW DELHI: The Baba Ramdev-Brinda Karat war of nerves took a new turn on Saturday with ten of the 115 sacked workers of the spiritual guru's Divya Yoga Pharmacy (DYP) backing Karat's allegation that human skull and animal parts were used to prepare Ayurvedic medicine at Ramdev's Haridwar factory.

One of the former worker,  Chandra Pal Dubey,  gave a new twist to the controversy alleging that horns of  "Barasingha"  (antelope) were brought into the factory, powdered and laced with the medicine. A charge that could invite action under Wildlife Act.

Dubey said his job was to weigh the sacks containing bones and powder them. He said two quintals of powder was made on an average per day in the pharmacy. 

The firebrand CPM leader brought the ten former employees, four women and six men and produced them before a  press conference when they too alleged that human skull, bones and animal horns were powdered and mixed with the Ayurvedic medicines produced at DYP.

Addressing the press, Karat, along with CPM Rajya Sabha member Dipankar Mukherjee and three CITU leaders, reiterated her allegations about use of  human skull and animal parts  by the DYP but shifted the main focus to violation of labour laws. They demanded immediate reinstatement of 115 out of the 400 workers sacked by the DYP on "cooked up charges".

Mukherjee alleged that pressure is being built on the health ministry to bail out Ramdev but his "party would not brook it."

Brinda Karat said her  allegations were not new, since as early as on July 30, Uttranchal labour minister Hira Singh Bist had written to the district magistrate seeking a probe into the allegations.

"All that I did was to raise two questions: violation of labour law and Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940," the CPM leader said adding : "the poor  mazdoors don't lie, they are not agents of multinationals.”