RMG workers on road again
Published on June 20, 2010 by News Hours BD · No CommentsNewshoursBD desk :
Some 100 people including 20 cops were injured and production was shut in over 50 factories in clashes between garment workers and police at Ashulia in Savar yesterday.
The workers demonstrating for a pay hike ransacked at least 37 factories, looted one and damaged 25 vehicles on Dhaka-Tangail highway between 9:00am and noon.
Police fired 65 rounds of rubber bullets and 14 teargas shells to break up the demonstration. They also used water cannon and charged baton, as several thousand workers threw brick chips at them.
The demonstrators barricaded the highway for three hours from 9:00am. Several hundred vehicles were stranded till law enforcers removed the blockades.
Many of the injured garment workers and 10 policemen had to be taken to hospitals and clinics in Savar and Dhaka and police arrested two workers on the scene.
Witnesses said it all began at Nasa Group factories, where workers were enforcing a work stoppage demanding Tk 5,000 in minimum wage. As the authorities misbehaved with them, they went on the rampage inside factories at around 8:30am.
Mostafa Kamal, second officer of Ashulia Police Station, said they were preparing to file a case against workers for assault on police.
After half an hour, around 7,000 workers came out of the Nasa Group factories and went to Nishchintapur bus stand. As police tried to stop them blocking the road, a melee broke out.
Chased by police, the agitating workers spread to different areas. They vandalised 37 factories including some of Ha-Meem Group and Sharmin Group in Narsinghapur area.
Security-in-charge of a Sharmin Group factory told newsmen the demonstrators have looted goods worth Tk 12 lakh.
Fearing trouble, owners shut down around 50 factories in Narsinghapur, Nishchintapur, Jamgara and Bipaile areas. But the decision backfired as workers from some of those factories joined the demonstrators.
Now in their thousands, workers barricaded the Dhaka-Tangail highway by trees and burning tires.
After efforts for hours, police managed to bring the situation under control around noon.
However, an eerie calm was hanging over till filling of this report at 7:00pm. Additional police and members of Rapid Action Battalion were deployed to avert further trouble.
Ismail Hossain, managing director of Sharmin Group, claimed that the outsiders attacked his factories without any reason.
“I pay my workers regularly. None of them can claim they have salaries outstanding with me,” he said adding that he will open his factories today.