Staff Reporter :
At least 25 people, including three policemen, were injured in a clash between police and former workers of state owned jute mills on Khulna-Jashore highway in Khulna city on Monday morning.
The clash happened when around 1,000 former workers of Khulna and Jashore jute industrial belt took position in front of Eastern gate of Atara Industrial area on the highway around 11:00am to press home their 14-point demand including reopening of 25 jute mills.
Police at first tried to negotiate with the workers when they, under the banner of Sammilito Nagorik Parishad, blocked the road.
But when the agitated workers rejected the negotiation, the policemen charged batons and fired teargas shells to disperse them from the road, leaving 20 to 22 of the workers injured, said Advocate Kudrat-e-Khuda, Convener of the Parishad.
At one stage, the demonstrators hurled brick chips at the law enforcers, leaving three of the policemen also injured.
Later law enforcers chased them and managed to disperse them from the highway and took control over the situation, according to police.
The injured policemen were given primary treatment, said Deputy Commissioner (DC-North) Mollah Zahangir Hossain.
One of the injured workers, identified as Tasnim Shamley, was admitted to Khulna Medical College Hospital for treatment after the incident.
The other injured people are also being given primary treatment, Kudrat-e-Khuda said.
Before taking position on the street, the workers held a rally around 10:00am, also demanding modernisation of the jute mills and payment of arrears for all the workers.
Besides, 15 jute mill workers’ leaders were arrested from the spot.Among the arrestees, eight were identified as Munir Chowdhury Sohel, Kudrat e Khuda, SA Rashid, Jonardan Datta Nantu, Mizanur Rahman Babu, Oliwar Rahman, Al Amin Sheikh, and Jakir Hossain.
Meanwhile, Bam Gonotantrik Jote, an alliance of left-leaning parties, organized a road blockade programme in the capital’s Purana Paltan area yesterday urging the government to reopen the 25 state-owned jute mills, which recently declared shut.
They said the government had closed down 25 state-owned jute mills on the pretext of losses being incurred by the mills. But the government had not yet taken any initiative to pin down the causes of the losses.
Workers were not responsible for the mills’ closure, for it was rather the corruption, looting and wrong decisions of the Jute Ministry and the BJMC that had brought about the shutdown, they added.
The government decided to shut down the 25 state-run jute mills under Bangladesh Jute Mill Corporation (BJMC) by providing cent per cent dues of some 25,000 workers of the mills.
Compensating the workers was stressed as a priority by the government while announcing the closure, with the country’s Jute and Textiles Minister even claiming a Tk 5000 crore fund had been set aside expressly for this purpose.
The decision came at a meeting held with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair at her residence Ganobhaban on July 2. The mills closed with immediate effect.
