Tension was renewed at the Designer Jeans garment factory in Ashulia’s Jamgora yesterday as factory authorities filed a fresh case against workers, a move that followed several days of unrest there.
The case was filed with Ashulia police station against 14 people – eight of them named – in connection with an alleged assault on the factory’s Chief Security Officer Altaf Hossain.
Altaf claimed that he fell victim to a sudden attack by several workers of the factory when he visited the nearby Beron area to assess the situation of the protesting workers yesterday morning.
Last Wednesday, workers of the Designer Jeans factory staged a work abstention programme, protesting the dismissal of two of their colleagues – a line chief and an operator both named Jahangir. The demonstrations became more intense after the factory was closed sine die on Thursday; the police had to step in to remove the protesting workers from in front of the factory.
As punitive action following the protests, the factory authorities further sacked 125 more workers on the grounds of violating discipline. The factory’s Administrative Officer Sharif Hossain also filed a case with the Ashulia police station against 260 workers, including 110 named individuals, accusing them of vandalising and looting the factory.
Following the filing of the case, 108 of the named accused secured bail on Sunday morning; the police later detained the two Jahangirs – who were fired last Tuesday – as they did not get bail.
Several workers of the factory told the Dhaka Tribune that two of their colleagues were initially fired from their jobs because of protesting different irregularities and injustice done by factory authorities. They also argued that it was not possible for the workers to have carried out any vandalism or looting inside the factory as the police had not allowed them near the factory gates on Thursday. The cases filed against them were false, the workers claimed.
Ashulia Industrial Police Director Mostafizur Rahman confirmed the incidents and said the factory was closed for the moment. Additional police personnel have also been deployed in front of the factory to avoid any untoward incident, he added.