Dhanbad, July 23: Two officers of Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL) are being held hostage by the workers at the Tundu unit of the company, 30 km from Dhanbad, for the past five days.

Deputy manager finance A.K. Shaw and junior personnel officer K. Satya Narayana were taken hostage by the Workers’ Union of HZL on Monday when they were trying to negotiate with the agitating workers.

The union has been staging a dharna since February 22 to protest against the management’s notice declaring suspension of all operations and no pay for 424 workers of the unit.

The district administration, however, is yet to resolve the stalemate between the management and the workers. “The administration has failed to rescue us even after five days. Our families are also suffering,” said Shaw.

Vice-president of the workers’ union Lal Bahadur Yadav alleged that the two officials were trying to tamper with the service records of the workers.

“We were forced to take them hostage otherwise we would have lost our gratuity and Provident Fund, too,” Yadav said.

Deputy superintendent of police Ranjit Prasad and subdivisional magistrate U.N. Oraon visited the factory to negotiate with the workers for the release of the hostages, but could not work out a truce. No FIR has been registered with the police.

HZL, a public sector unit set up in 1964, was known as the Metal Corporation of India before nationalisation.

However, it was divested in 2002. The Sterlite Opportunities and Ventures Limited, which had 26 per cent stake in the company, soon took over the management and introduced a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS). But only 90 workers opted for VRS.

However, the situation was different a couple of years ago. In 2002-2003, HZL had an annual turnover of more than Rs 1,500 crore and the workers of Tundu unit received Rs 10,000 bonus each.

The government became a minority stakeholder after the Sterlite Opportunities and Ventures Limited was handed over 66 per cent stakes in the company.

The Tundu unit was set up as the Jharia coalfield guaranteed surplus availability of coke for an industry, which produced lead and yielded pure silver as by-product.

But now the shadow of auction looms large over the unit because of the unwillingness of the management to run the factory.