Vandalising RMG units
Photo: Star
Around 5,000 workers on 19 April 2010 ransacked the Esquire Knit Composite Ltd. at Kanchpur, damaged at least 12 vehicles and clashed with police that left 40 people, including 20 policemen, injured. The workers also barricaded the Dhaka Sylhet highway for about four hours demanding salary hike.
This is nothing new. The question is how long this sort of anarchy will go on unabated! In this particular case, a local gang looted a huge quantity of readymade garments and other valuables from the factory taking advantage of the unrest. A responsible official of the factory claimed that around five lakh pieces of T-shirts were looted from the factory i.e. the direct financial loss is in crores . Recently, one of the national dailies published news with statistical data depicting the sickening condition of the country's industrial sector. This sort of unruly and suicidal behaviour of the workers will not only discourage the new investors but also compel the present ones to wrap up their business. Besides, with no fault the general public is being subjected to untold sufferings and property losses when caught in violence just because they were passers-by.
The government and its law enforcing authorities must do something to reverse the sliding law and order situation and erosion of public confidence. The police filed a case against around 5,000 workers in connection with the above incident. The authorities must go for severe punishment against the real culprits and their numbers can not be in thousands. While consoling the grieving family of a murdered policeman in the capital, the Home Minister herself had to listen that the present deteriorating law and order situation was responsible for the tragic death of a brave and energetic police officer. Now it is time to change the conventional way of maintaining law and order and go for an overhaul to redesign the whole system.
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