DHAKA, 24 May 2006 — Bangladeshi government called out troops yesterday to quell violent rioting by garment workers in and around the capital Dhaka. Paramilitary troops were deployed in Gazipur, Ashulia, Uttara, Mirpur, Tejgaon, Rampura and other places where most garment factories are located as violence spread across the city following clashes at the Dhaka Export Processing Zone on Monday that left two workers dead.
Tens of thousands of textile workers demanding better pay torched 14 more factories yesterday. The demonstrators, including barefoot women, opened up a battlefield in the country’s biggest textile industrial belt covering Dhaka and its adjoining industrial towns of Ashulia, Savar and Tongi, police said. Some 50,000 protesters armed with bamboo sticks and chanting slogans burned garment factories at Ashulia as police fired tear gas and used batons to disperse them, local police chief Jamiruddin Ahmed said.
Dhaka fire brigade Deputy Director Selim Newaz Bhuiyan said a total of 14 garment factories were set on fire in Ashulia, Dhaka and its suburbs. In the capital, more than 10,000 workers from Dhaka’s Tejgaon industrial area and from the Mirpur, Uttara and Wari districts poured into the streets demanding better pay, overtime and a mandatory weekly holiday.
The workers torched and smashed dozens of cars and buses and stormed dozens of factories before blocking major roads and bringing city traffic to a virtual halt, the Dhaka police control room said.
“At least 10,000 garment workers demonstrated in the city’s Kafrul area. They ransacked several factories, broke vehicles and put blockades on the road,” said the duty police officer for the Kafrul area, Mizanur Rahman.
Police said more than 1,500 workers stormed factories in Tejgaon and looted and set fire to one factory after its owners prevented the workers from joining the agitation.
Some 2,000 vandalized a garment factory in Abdullahpur, police said, adding the thousands of garment workers also ransacked several factories and torched vehicles in the neighboring industrial town of Tongi.
Manufacturers said at least 100 garment factories were ransacked yesterday. They suspected an international conspiracy.
