Maruti halts production at plant on worker issues

Private security guards stand outside the main entrance to the Maruti Suzuki India Limited plant in Manesar, Haryana June 14, 2011.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Maruti Suzuki, India's top car maker, on Monday has halted production at its Manesar plant in Haryana after it dismissed some workers and asked all others to sign a "good conduct bond", a company spokesman said.

In June, about 800 workers had gone on a 13-day strike at the same Manesar plant, crippling production and leading to more than $90 million in lost output.

Shares in Maruti, valued at about $6.8 billion, closed 0.4 percent lower in a Mumbai market that jumped 3.6 percent.

Maruti, 54.2 percent owned by Japan's Suzuki, has suspended 10 workers and dismissed five others "for sabotaging the production and deliberately causing quality problems" in the vehicles produced at the plant last week, the company said in a statement.

"The company is of the view that the situation has reached to a stage where it was directly harming customers' interest and trust," the Maruti statement said.

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; editing by Malini Menon)