Waiters of cafe targeted in 26/11 attack protest sacking

Former employees of Mumbai's Leopold Cafe, which was targeted by Pakistani gunmen during the 2008 terror attack in the city, Thursday began a five-day agitation against their employers for sacking them without reason.

"The sole surviving terrorist of the attack Ajmal Kasab has been hanged. But an uncertain fate is hanging over us. We are protesting against our unfair sacking," Tukaram Ilale, one of the 10 waiters who were sacked, told IANS.

"Some of us had helped save several lives while on duty at the cafe," he added.

Dressed in their trade-mark red t-shirts with Leopold written on it, two of the former waiters fasted for the whole day at the city's Azad Maidan.
"We were neither given a reason, nor an official termination letter before being sacked. We were told not to come for work from the next day. One of us was suspended for trying to form a union," Ilale said.

The waiter requested the state government's intervention to help sort out the matter with the Leopold Cafe management.

The owners of Leopold Cafe could not be contacted. However, a local news channel quoted Farhang Jehani, a business partner, as saying that the waiters were sacked for misbehaving with patrons. Ilale refuted the allegation.