Garment Workers Try to Block Highway Again in Gazipur's Kaliakair, Police Disperse Them with Sound Grenades
Garment workers blocked the Dhaka-Tangail highway and demonstrated in Kaliakair, Gazipur. The blockade at the Telirchala area of Mouchak at around 8:45 am today, Sunday, brought traffic on the highway to a halt.
Traffic later returned to normal after members of the law enforcement agencies fired sound grenades and tear gas shells to move the workers away.
Eyewitnesses said workers of various industrial factories in Gazipur's Mouchak, Palli Bidyut, Konabari and Sofipur areas have been demonstrating for several days demanding a wage increase. Continuing that, workers blocked the Dhaka-Tangail highway in the Mouchak area this morning.
All kinds of traffic on the highway stopped because of the blockade, and passengers suffered.
Local sources said that at around 9 am, workers of Levenda Garments in the Telirchala area of Kaliakair came to join work. Instead of joining work, however, they blocked the highway and began demonstrating.
When members of the law enforcement agencies requested them to leave the highway, the workers became agitated. Police then fired sound grenades and tear gas shells to bring the situation under control, and the workers dispersed.
Gazipur Industrial Police Superintendent Mohammad Amjad Hossain said the workers had blocked the highway at Mouchak. Now that they have been moved away, traffic is normal, he said, adding that members of the law enforcement agencies are on alert.
Amid the ongoing worker unrest over the demand for a minimum wage increase, 25 platoons of law enforcement personnel led by 25 executive magistrates have been deployed to keep the law and order situation under control in Gazipur's industrial belt.
Earlier, on Saturday (November 14) too, a tense situation arose over a worker demonstration in the Chandra Palli Bidyut area of Kaliakair upazila in Gazipur. Tear gas shells and sound grenades were fired that day to disperse the workers, and the situation returned to normal at around 11:30 am.
