"He would in all likelihood have been saved."
The employer of an Indian farmer has been arrested, according to sources.
In June 2024, Satnam Singh died in Italy after he was injured by heavy machinery.
He was working in a vegetable field in Latina, which is a rural area that has a significant amount of Indian immigrant labourers.
When the incident occurred, Satnam’s arm was severed and his legs were crushed.
Afterwards, his employer Antonello Lovato allegedly loaded him and his wife into a van and abandoned them by the side of the road.
The severed arm was placed in a fruit box.
Italian police have now arrested Lovato and have charged him with the second-degree murder of the Indian farmer.
The prosecutors’ office of Latina said:
“If the Indian, who died due to copious blood loss, had been promptly helped, he would in all likelihood have been saved.
“The worker’s condition after the accident was so serious as to make the need for prompt assistance clear.”
Prosecutors added that an investigation into the farm’s working conditions would be ongoing.
After Satnam’s death, Lovato’s father said: “My son had told [Satnam Singh] not to go near the machinery, but he didn’t listen.”
Laura Hardeep Kaur, General Secretary of the Frosinone-Latina Unit of the Flai Cgil Union, said:
“Adding to the horror of the accident is the fact that, instead of being rescued, the Indian farm worker was dumped near his home.
“He was left on the road like a bag of rags, like a sack of rubbish despite his wife begging [the employer] to take him to hospital.
“Here we are not only faced with a serious workplace accident, which in itself is already alarming, we are faced with barbaric exploitation. Enough now.
“Foreign labourers continue to be invisible, at the mercy of ferocious bosses, often Italian.”
According to Ms Kaur, Satnam was apparently working for the meagre sum of €5 (£4.22) an hour without a legal contract.
Italy’s largest trade union, CGIL, estimates that approximately 230,000 people – over a quarter of the country’s seasonal agricultural workers – do not have a contract.
The Indian embassy in Italy said it was “deeply saddened by the unfortunate demise of an Indian national” and stated that it was “actively liaising with local authorities”.
The Indian farmer worked in an area that is home to a vast Sikh and Punjabi population.
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