NEW DELHI (AFP) - Sacked workers in India beat to death the local boss of an Italian company that had laid them off, police said Tuesday. Scores of former employees at car parts maker Graziano Transmissioni attacked Chief Executive Lalit Kishore Chaudhary, 47, when a meeting on Monday to discuss a long-running labour dispute turned violent, police said. "Twenty-three people are still in hospital," SP Babu Ram told AFP. The police said the company sacked more than 100 workers three months ago but arranged the meeting to work out a possible reinstatement deal. Chaudhary, a father of one, was hit on the head with either a stick or an iron rod and was declared dead on arrival at hospital, police said. "The company staff were heavily outnumbered," Ram said. Meanwhile, India's labour minister on Tuesday described the killing of a company boss by the sacked workers as a lesson to other employers to treat their staff better, a report said. "This should serve as a warning for management," Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes told reporters, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. "Workers should be dealt with compassion. They should not be pushed so hard that they resort to whatever happened," he said.