Industrial police fired rubber bullets and teargas shells to disperse workers of a garment factory, who were protesting termination of 10 colleagues at Gazipur’s Tongi area today.
Workers of Crossline Need Fabric Limited were demonstrating inside the factory over the last three days, saying that their colleagues were terminated without any “justified reasons”.
Demanding reinstatement of the 10 terminated colleagues, the workers went for work abstention and started demonstrating in front of the factory in Bhadam area — halting vehicular movement on Bhadam-Tongi regional road.
On information, police rushed to the spot and asked them to free the road. At one stage of altercation with the law enforcers, workers hurled brick chips, leaving six police personnel and three Ansar members injured.
To bring the situation under control, police and Ansar members fired at least 60 teargas canisters and rubber bullets, said Siddiqur Rahman, superintendent of Gazipur Industrial Police.
Workers claimed that 50 of them were injured in the police action. The injured received treatment at different pharmacies.
Injured law enforcers took first aid from Tongi Ahsan Ullah Master General Hospital, the SP said, adding that no casualty among workers were reported.
Later, the authorities shut the factory for an indefinite period.
Our Gazipur correspondent could not reach the administrative officer of the factory as he did not respond to phone calls.