At least one worker was killed and scores were injured as police opened fire on the agitating employees of ACI Pharmaceuticals in Godnail under Shiddhirganj upazila of Narayanganj on Sunday.
Witnesses said temporary worker of the factory, Enamul, 25, from Rangpur, succumbed to bullet injuries in nearby Khanpur hospital.
Of the injured, factory workers Ariful Islam, 22, and Shamim, 30, and police constable Helaluddin, 26, were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital while workers Sohel, Maina, Sajib, Mamun, Siraj, Atiqullah, Harun, Nayeem, Akhtar, Shahidul and Javed were admitted to Khanpur hospital.
Factory general manager Ishtiak Ahmed said the workers had been ‘illogically’ staging work abstention for the last two days.
On Sunday morning, they started vandalising the factory forcing the management to call police who brought the situation under control, Ishtiak claimed.
The workers, however, said they were staging a peaceful demonstration when the authorities called the police who used batons triggering the clashes. Police opened fire and used tear gas to disperse the protesters.
Spot accounts said that the workers had started demonstrations on the factory premises on Sunday morning on the second day of their work abstention. They also brought out processions and at one point confined the general manager of the factory.
The police arrived at the scene at around 11:00am and charged batons and fired tear gas shells, witnesses said.
The agitating workers retaliated by hurling stones and bottles. At one point the police opened fire on the protesters leaving over 100 workers and onlookers injured, they said.
The workers also vandalised a number of vehicles, including a police van, on the road in front of the factory.
The workers claimed that five of their colleagues remained missing till 8:00pm.
Shiddhirganj police officer-in-charge Badrul Alam said the police had fired about a hundred rounds of bullet, 40 rounds of rubber bullet and tear gas to bring the situation under control.
The situation calmed down after deployment of police reinforcement and Rapid Action Battalion, he said.
Nearly 400 workers of the ACI were demanding an increase in their daily remuneration from Tk 120 to Tk 250, stopping termination on lame excuses and making their jobs permanent, but the authorities did not pay heed and even threatened more terminations if the workers did not stop protests.
The workers also claimed that the jobs of some of them were not made permanent though they had been in service for about 20 years.
Factory general manager Ishtiak Ahmed and human resource department officer Awlad Hossain claimed that the workers had vandalised wealth of about Tk 100 crore of the factory.
They also termed ‘illogical’ the demands of the workers.
Additional police, members of RAB and armed battalion have been deployed to prevent any further trouble.
