At least 40 people were injured in a clash between sweater factory workers and the police at Nawjor and Konabari area in Gazipur on Saturday.
The workers, agitating to press a 10-point demand, including increasing the production charges for each piece of sweater, vandalised factories, at least 50 vehicles and blocked the Dhaka-Tangail highway for about one and half hour, resulting in a huge traffic jam in the area.
To avoid further deterioration of the situation, most of the sweater factory authorities closed down their factories for the day.
Jahid, a worker at DotCom Sweaters in the Nawjor area of Gazipur, said: “The factories were scheduled to pay our salary for the month of October on Thursday night. But, the authority did not pay till 11pm that day. As a result, the workers became angry and ransacked the factory.”
Police had arrived at the factory immediately, and took the situation under control. However, following the weekend on Friday, the workers returned to the factory Saturday to find a notice at its gate, announcing that the authority had closed the factory for an indefinite period, he claimed.
At this, the workers became even angrier, and started demonstrating in front of the factory.
At one stage, around 9am in the morning, the agitated worker blocked the Dhaka-Tangail highway by burning tyres and hurled brickbats at vehicles.
Officer-in-charge at Joydebpur police station, SM Kamruzzaman said they had to resort to charging baton, fired rubber bullets and lobbed tear-gas canisters to disperse the agitating workers.
Witnesses claimed at least 15 were left injured in that clash.
DotCom Sweaters’ Production Manager, Emdad Hossain said the police intervened to bring the situation under control. He said that the factory has been closed temporarily.
He claimed, the worker had ransacked the factory Thursday night after the salary amount arrived late at the factory.
Sub-inspector Md Rabiul Islam at Konabari police outpost, said: “Over 500 workers from different sweater factories in the Konabari area joined to press their 10-point demand, including increasing the production charges, and the daily attendance bonus at minimum 200 taka.
Workers from different sweater factories, including JL design, Global Merchant Limited, Meritex One, Shohan, Asif Sweaters and Titas Sweaters at Konabari area started to protest around 8:30am in the morning.
Later, the authorities of the factories declared their units shut for the day.
The protesting workers subsequently blocked the Dhaka-Tangail highway when the police baton charged and fired rubber-bullets to disperse them. The protesters set fire to a human hauler at the area.
At least 25 people were injured, according to witnesses and police. The injured were taken to nearby clinics and hospitals.
Traffic on the highway resumed around 11:30am, after being stopped for one and a half hours.
One of the agitated worker said though wages for garment factory workers have been decided to be increased, there has been no announcement regarding sweater factory or knitting section workers.