Italian landowner arrested after Indian worker dies in farm accident | World News

Italian police have arrested the owner of the agricultural company that dumped a 31-year-old Indian worker on the street without medical attention after heavy agricultural machinery severed his arm and killed him – a tragic incident that shocked the country and its leaders.

Satnam Singh was abandoned by his employer last month after a strawberry packing machine severed his arm in Lazio, near Rome; he died of “profuse bleeding”, the ANSA news agency reported.

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The Sikh casual farm worker died two days later in a hospital in Rome after being airlifted there.

Police arrested suspected gang leader Antonello Lovato on Tuesday on suspicion of causing Singh’s slaying, the report said.

In a statement, the public prosecutor’s office said the Sikh farmer, who died of massive bleeding in a Rome hospital, “could in all probability have been saved if he had been helped immediately.”

“We were waiting for this news, we were angry,” said the president of the Lazio Indian Community, Gurmukh Singh.

“The worst thing (Lovato) did was leave him outside his house instead of taking him to the hospital,” he was quoted as saying.

“An accident can happen, but not calling for medical help is unacceptable,” he said.

Singh’s death sparked a storm of indignation over the widespread form of slavery and gang exploitation in Italy, especially in the south of the country.

According to an earlier report, Lovato loaded Singh and his wife into a van and left them on the side of the road near their home. Singh’s severed arm was placed in a fruit crate.

Meanwhile, Singh’s widow Soni, who was treated for shock after the incident, has been granted a special “judicial” residence permit to end her illegal status in Italy, it said.

On June 26, India called on Italy to take immediate action against those responsible for Singh’s death.

Muktesh Pardeshi, Secretary (CPV & OIA), conveyed India’s “deep concern” over Singh’s death to Luigi Maria Vignali, Director General of Italian Nationals Abroad and Migration Policy, the Indian Embassy in Italy said in a post on X. He called for immediate action against those responsible. “The embassy is in touch with the family of Satnam Singh to arrange consular assistance and repatriation of the mortal remains,” the mission added.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said last month that Singh, one of thousands of Indian immigrants working in the country’s fields, had been the victim of “inhumane acts”.

“These are inhumane acts that do not deserve the Italian people. I hope that this barbarism will be severely punished,” she said following a cabinet meeting.

Italy’s Labor Minister Marina Calderone described Singh’s death as “an act of barbarism.”

Giuseppe Conte, leader of the opposition Five Star Movement (M5S), had called on Meloni to take measures to put an end to the brutal gang rule.

“You lose your arm while working in the fields for four euros an hour. You don’t get immediate treatment. You get put in a van and dumped like garbage in front of your house,” Conte wrote on X.

“Next to you is a basket of strawberries with your severed arm in it. You bleed to death and die. It sounds like the story of a slave from centuries ago. We cannot close our eyes, we cannot think of making a profit while we erase the dignity of work and the last remnants of humanity,” he wrote.

“We are ready to do our part in Parliament against this barbarism that must be eradicated throughout Italy,” he added.

The rule of gangs and the often violent exploitation of migrant agricultural workers is a chronic problem in Italy, especially in the south.

Latina is home to thousands of migrant workers, many of them Sikhs, who harvest fruit and vegetables for the local agrarian mafia.

The occupational accident insurance agency INAIL announced earlier this month that the number of fatal accidents in Italy had increased by four to 268 in the first four months of this year.

Last year there were around 100, it was said.