Jamshedpur, Nov. 30: Eight employees of a forging unit at Gamharia, 10km from Jamshedpur, were hospitalised in the small hours of Wednesday allegedly after inhaling ammonia that they claimed had leaked from Jamshedpur Dairy, but the makers of Sudha Dairy products denied the allegation, calling it a ploy to discredit the unit.

Only 200 metres separate Ramkrishna Forging Limited and the dairy plant, a unit of Bihar State Co-operative Milk Producers’ Federation (Comfed) at the industrial hub. According to officials of the forging unit, around 100 employees began complaining of breathing problems at 2.30am. Unit general manager D.N. Gupta said he got a call from his security office at 2.40am about “workers feeling dizzy”.

Gupta said that since they dealt in mechanical work where gas was not required, he was surprised to hear the complaint. “But when I reached our plant site at 3am with senior manager Manohar Pandey, we ourselves found it difficult to breathe,” he told The Telegraph.

Workers milled around him, complaining that the gas had leaked from Jamshedpur Dairy, the general manager said. Officer-in-charge of Adityapur police station K.N. Choudhary said they had not received any complaint.