Tulsa, May 25 (AP): A US federal judge awarded a group of 52 Indians more than $1.2 million after finding their employer, an oil equipment manufacturer, guilty of fraud, false imprisonment and civil rights violations.

Criticising John Pickle Co, federal judge Clair V. Egan said: “The defendants recruited Indian workers in India, brought them to the US, housed and fed them separately from the non-Indian employees, identified them as Indians and made numerous discriminatory comments about their ancestry, ethnic background, culture, and country.”

The verdict came over four years after the workers left the west Tulsa factory. They accused the company of making them live in a dormitory on the factory grounds and keeping them from leaving the grounds even when off duty.