Body of Gazipur garment worker Toufik reaches Gaibandha home, funeral and burial on Wednesday

Garment worker Toufik Sheikh (21), who was severely beaten during the ongoing workers’ movement in Gazipur demanding higher wages, has died while undergoing treatment. He died on Tuesday (3 November) at noon at Shin Shin Japan Hospital in Uttara, Dhaka. His body reached his village home in Gobindaganj, Gaibandha, on Tuesday night.

Toufik was from Chhoyghariya village in Kochashahar Union of Gobindaganj upazila, Gaibandha. He lived in a rented house in the Banglabazar area of Gazipur and worked at the local Laila Garments factory.

Gobindaganj police station officer-in-charge Md Mahfuz Alam said Toufik’s body arrived at the village home at around 10pm on Tuesday, and that he would be buried on Wednesday.

Kochashahar Union Parishad chairman Md Zahurul Haque said Toufik’s funeral prayer would be held at Chhoyghariya village at 9:30am on Wednesday, followed by burial at the village graveyard.

Relatives said Toufik was a student of the SSC 2023 batch at Chhoyghariya Bohumukhi High School. After his father’s death, he took a job at a Gazipur garment factory through a friend to support his livelihood.

The ongoing movement is demanding a minimum wage of 30,000 taka. Toufik’s elder brother Harun Mia told reporters that workers have been protesting at various places in Gazipur for several days demanding a wage increase. During the protest, Toufik tried to record a scene of an attack on his mobile phone, when the attackers turned on him and beat him severely, leaving him critically injured.

Fellow protesting workers rescued Toufik and admitted him to hospital. He died on Tuesday at noon while being treated in the ICU of Shin Shin Japan Hospital in Uttara.

Gazipur Metropolitan Police (GMP) Additional Commissioner (Crime and Operations) Mohammad Belayet Hossain said he had heard that a worker had died. According to him, outsiders went to pressure a factory to close, and when the authorities refused, a clash broke out between the outsiders and that factory’s workers, during which the worker was seriously injured. He said no police member was present there at the time.

In another police account, law enforcement went to the scene during the movement and brought the situation under control, after which things returned to normal. Police said Toufik was not injured in that operation; he was injured when workers beat him while he was filming.