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Thousands of garment workers staged violent demonstrations in Dhaka and Gazipur yesterday, barricading major thoroughfares in Mirpur and Uttara for around four hours and vandalising around 100 apparel-manufacturing units and looting shopping complexes. Law-enforcers were very late to show up in the site of destruction, allowing the workers to run amok practically without any resistance. When a few policemen arrived at last, the demonstrators locked in fierce clashes with them at Azampur in Uttara and Shewrapara in Mirpur, leaving over 100 people including 15 policemen injured. They beat up the officer-in-charge (OC) of Uttara Police Station and snatched his pistol and walkie-talkie. The police could not recover those as of 7:00pm yesterday.
Thousands of garment workers staged violent demonstrations in Dhaka and Gazipur yesterday, barricading major thoroughfares in Mirpur and Uttara for around four hours and vandalising around 100 apparel-manufacturing units and looting shopping complexes.
Law-enforcers were very late to show up in the site of destruction, allowing the workers to run amok practically without any resistance. When a few policemen arrived at last, the demonstrators locked in fierce clashes with them at Azampur in Uttara and Shewrapara in Mirpur, leaving over 100 people including 15 policemen injured.
They beat up the officer-in-charge (OC) of Uttara Police Station and snatched his pistol and walkie-talkie. The police could not recover those as of 7:00pm yesterday.
A group of agitating garment workers set fire to apparel at the Woodland garment factory in Mirpur while another group burned four vehicles at Azampur bus stand in Uttara. Around 100 vehicles were set on fire in different areas of Mirpur and Uttara.
Reports of demonstrations also came from Hatirpool, Shyamoli and Mohammadpur in the city and Abdullahpur and Tongi industrial area in Gazipur.
Police sources said the number of policemen was very small at the spots while the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) present also remained almost inactive.
Despite a countrywide half-day strike called by Garments Sramik Sangram Parishad, an alliance of 11 garment workers' associations, demanding Tk 3,000 as minimum wage, many owners opened their factories at different places in the capital yesterday morning.
The clashes between the law enforcers and the agitating workers ensued as the latter attacked the industrial units to force the management to shut down.
However, many of the stick and iron rod yielding garment workers agitating in Mirpur could not clearly say why they were agitating. Some of them said they are protesting against the non-payment of their last month's salary. They said the delay was only to dodge the payment of the bonus.
The garment workers threw stones at the doors and window glasses of all garment factories and a few shopping malls on both sides of Rokeya Sarani from Mirpur-12 to Shewrapara, and of the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway in Uttara.
Witnesses said thousands of agitators took to the streets around 8:30am blocking around the three-kilometre road from Azampur to Abdullahpur while several thousand others barricaded the main streets from Mirpur-12 to Taltola on Rokeya Sarani.
Commuters including officials and students found it difficult to reach their destinations due to the barricades. Vehicles remained stranded in long queues on the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway and Rokeya Sarani.
UTTARA
More than one thousand workers took out a procession in Uttara around 8:00am. At one stage, they attacked the Maskat Plaza and started looting goods. As police came forward to disperse the garment workers and outsiders, the workers started throwing stones at the law enforcers and chased them to the Uttara Police Station.
Another group started vandalising vehicles at Abdullahpur. They also pelted brickbats and attacked with sticks as around 30 policemen tried to disperse them.
The policemen took shelter at a CNG filling station in the area, but the workers vandalised it and beat up the policemen.
When several severely injured policemen were being taken to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital in an ambulance, the workers attacked the ambulance and beat up the policemen again.
Roads in Uttara were opened for traffic around 1:00pm.
Mirpur
In Mirpur, security personnel employed by Mollah Market at Mirpur-12 fired four or five blank shots from their licensed shotguns when the protesters tried to attack the market that housed several garments factories.
Police clashed with the agitating workers at Shewrapara from 10:30am to 12:00 noon as the workers tried to attack some garment factories after the staff of a factory beat up two workers.
Police lobbed several teargas shells to disperse the workers.
Thousands of workers damaged barbed wires and uprooted fences of the city's road divider beautification scheme and went wild on the streets with truncheons in their hands,” said witnesses.
A group of striking workers also attacked the double-decker bus depot at Mirpur 12 at about 9:30am following information that the depot employees injured one of their fellow workers.
The government-appointed tripartite National Minimum Wage Board last Thursday formulated a proposal unanimously fixing the minimum wage for the workers of the export-oriented garment industry at Tk 1662.50 per month, widening the difference between the negotiating owners and workers.
However, some workers' organisations demanding Tk 3,000 per month as minimum wage called the strike in a delayed sequel to an unprecedented labour revolt in the export oriented industry that flared up from Dhaka Export Processing Zone and engulfed the industrial belts in and around the capital in May-June this year.
A number of garment factory owners said yesterday's violence is a conspiracy by a vested quarter to destroy the export-oriented garments industries of Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, different political and workers' organisations condemned police atrocities on garment workers in different areas in the capital yesterday during the strike called by Garments Sramik Sangram Parishad.
The organisations that observed yesterday's strike are Garment Workers Unity Forum, Sramik Karmachari Sangram Parishad, Garments Sramik Sangram Parishad, Bangladesh National Garments Workers Employees League, Jago Bangladesh Garments Sramik Federation, Bangladesher Workers Party and five left leaning parties.
Savar
At least 50 garment workers were injured yesterday and 20 arrested as law enforcers and the agitating garment workers clashed at Savar and Ashulia, reports our JU correspondent.
The workers were demonstrating to enforce a strike called to protest the newly fixed minimum wage for RMG workers. Their demand includes Tk 3,000 as minimum wage.
More than 1,500 workers from different garment factories blockaded the Dhaka-Aricha and Nabinagar-Kaliakoir highways in the morning as part of the strike and vandalised about 30 to 35 vehicles.
Both highways remained snapped for about two hours while around a dozen of garment factories in the area came under attack of the protesters.
As the police intercepted the procession and clubbed the demonstrators, the workers vandalised numbers of factories nearby including Han Apparels Ltd and Cannon Apparels Ltd. They also vandalised a microbus belonging to the law enforcers.
It took around two hours for the law enforcers to have the situation under control. The clash left at least 30 workers injured.
"The workers have been arrested for blockading the highway, vandalising vehicles and creating disorder in normal life. Preparation is underway to file a case," said Akhtaruzzaman, officer in charge of Savar Police Station.
No incidence of violence was reported yesterday in Dhaka Export Processing Zone area.
Meanwhile, criminals vandalised a sweater factory at Durgapur in Ashulia and injured five people yesterday as the factory owner refused to pay Tk 5 lakh as toll.