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Download PDF Employees of around 20 garment factories in Tejgaon vandalised 10 factories and set fire to several vehicles yesterday following sudden shutdown of a factory and rumours of an employee being killed.
The vandals also took valuables, including computers, garment items, furniture and construction materials, from the factories during the rampage.
Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) formed a 12-member committee to investigate the vandalism.
Sources said the incident took place a day after goons led by one Mobarak beat up the workers of Padma Poly Cotton Knit Fabrics Ltd and confined five injured inside the factory, allegedly at the owner’s directive.
The Padma factory workers became agitated around 7:30am yesterday when they found a notice of indefinite shutdown hung on the factory’s main gate.
Earlier Tuesday, the workers staged a strike following rumours of death of their leader Sayeed at the hands of the factory owner’s hired goons. The workers believed the body of Sayeed was hidden inside the Padma factory, sources said.
The agitating employees went to other factories in the Tejgaon industrial area to demonstrate.
About 2,500 agitators from different factories gathered on the road. They set fire to over 20 tyres kept in front of the nearby Hamim Garments factory around 9:30am. They also vandalised the offices of the adjacent Sharmin Group.
As the protesters were urging workers of other factories to join their demonstration, owners of those factories reportedly prevented their workers from joining.
Infuriated by this, the Padma factory workers attacked adjacent Nassa Group head office on the Tejgaon-Gulshan Link Road around 9:45am and smashed its windowpanes. Vehicular movement on the road was disrupted for about four hours.
“When we were asking the workers to come out and join us, the security guards swooped on us,” claimed an agitating employee of Padma factory.
But Nassa officials said the demonstrators started throwing brickbats as the Nassa Group employees took time to join them.
The demonstrators set fire to nine vehicles parked in front of the Nassa office and its security guards’ room. They stormed into the building and ransacked the offices. They were also seen taking away garments, furniture, computers and other valuables from the office.
Officials of the Nassa Group head office claimed 35 of its employees were injured while trying to stop the agitating workers from ransacking the offices.
Police arrived in the area and the workers left the spot an hour later. Witnesses claimed the police did not take any action against the demonstrators.
At 10:45am, the demonstrators came back to an under-construction building of Padma factory and took away construction materials and parts of four covered vans and three cars. They also set fire to a machine in the Padma factory.
The demonstrators tried to resist fire fighters from doing their jobs at Nassa, Padma and Hamim.
The police fired teargas canisters to disperse the agitators during the vandalism.
The demonstrators then vandalised seven other garment factories. A few groups of the agitating workers set up barricades on the Tongi Diversion Road.
A large number of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) men rushed to the factories and tried to assure the demonstrators of finding missing workers’ leader Sayeed.
An 11-member delegation of the demonstrators, Rab, police and officials representing the Padma factory searched the entire seven-storey building but did not find any body.
Padma DGM (admin) Nuruzzaman Chowdhury told The Daily Star, “We have nothing to do with Sayeed going missing. He had a fight with outsiders outside the building as a sequel to his personal rivalry with them on Monday.” He also dismissed the allegation that the owner of the factory had Sayeed removed or killed.
He said the factory would be reopened soon.
The police and Rab were deployed in front of the Padma factory.
PROBE BODY
The BGMEA yesterday formed a 12-member probe committee to investigate the employees’ unrest and vandalism at the Padma factory.
The committee led by BGMEA Vice-President Harunur Rashid was asked to submit the investigation report by 5:00pm today, according to sources.
The committee was formed after Padma factory workers gathered in front of the BGMEA head office at Karwan Bazar yesterday afternoon.
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