Manager accuses worker of chopping own finger off

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The manager and owner of a Bahraini carpentry firm has accused a migrant worker of deliberately cutting off his own finger in order to make money.

Abbas Zilfi, who owns the Abbas Zifili Trading Establishment had also failed to make insurance payments to the General Organisation of Social Insurance – blaming the shortfall on the death of a clearing agent. Additionally, the firm’s commercial registration had been cancelled.

Speaking to the Bahrain-based Gulf Daily News he said, “I think he [severed his finger] on purpose”

The injured man, Felix Maria Antony spent more than four months fighting for compensation, but his employer who was winding up the firm was only prepared to pay him his outstanding wages and repatriate him to the Tamil Nadu state. The Indian Embassy reportedly advised the man not to accept the plane ticket until the situation was resolved in Bahrain.

"Someone has obviously told him that if he goes to the embassy he'll be able to get more money. He is just getting greedy," Zilfi told the paper.

Abbas Zifili Trading Establishment has since been wound up.