Hundreds of agitated ready-made garment workers of the five garments factories housed at the collapsed Rana Plaza brought out a procession along with the relatives of the deceased, injured and missing workers blocking the Dhaka-Aricha highway on Tuesday. During their more than two-hour long protests, movement of all kinds of vehicles were completely halted fearing vandalism, eyewitnesses said.
District Deputy Commissioner Sheikh Yusuf Harun arrived at the scene and tried to calm down the workers. But they became more agitated as he said, dues of only one month would
be paid.
Arif Hossain, supervisor of the finishing section a garment factory, said, most of the injured are unable to bear the costs of their treatment. Hence, factory owners must pay for their treatments, he demanded.
After a while, the Deputy Commissioner, accompanied by top officials of police and Industrial police, announced that the dues demanded by the workers would be handed over to them at Bish Mile Army ground from 3pm.
Following his announcement, the demonstrators left the highway at around 12:30pm and headed for the Army ground. The traffic resumed after the withdrawal, Savar police Inspector
Aminur Rahman said. Local sources claimed that the authority refused to pay the fourth month’s salary of the five RMG factories as per law, but the workers declined to receive their one month’s salary.
The authority wanted to pay only one month’s salary which was due after the incident.
-With The Independent input
