Bangladesh workers clash with police in fire protest

Demonstrators block key highway

DHAKA, Dec 2, (AFP): Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas Sunday in clashes with thousands of Bangladeshi workers protesting over the deaths of 110 people in one of the country’s worst factory fires and the sacking of labourers.

Industrial police deputy director Baser Uddin said the sacking of scores of workers at a plant triggered the latest demonstration following the deadly blaze last weekend at Tazreen Fashion in the Ashulia industrial area north of the capital Dhaka.

“We shot rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse them,” Uddin said, adding that the protestors blocked a key highway, torching furniture and tyres.

Protesters fought back with stones, police said, turning the industrial area, home to hundreds of plants which make clothing for Western retailers, into a battleground.

He said Tazreen Fashion workers joined the protest, demanding their wages and justice for the victims of the fire.

“The Tazreen workers were told that they would be paid their November salary on Saturday. The owners did not keep their word. There was no payment even on Sunday,” he said.

Scores of factories declared an impromptu holiday on Sunday, which is a workday in Muslim majority Bangladesh, fearing the protests would spread and turn into larger-scale labour unrest, he said.

Survivors of the blaze told AFP how workers, most of them women, tried to escape the burning Tazreen Fashion factory, which supplied clothes to a variety of international brands including US giant Walmart and Dutch retailer C&A.

Authorities said the nine-storey factory had permission for three floors, while firefighters said all three of the fire exits led to the ground floor, where the blaze started, meaning staff upstairs were effectively trapped. A Hindu holy man or sadhu, Amar Bharti from Kullu in the northern Himachal Pradesh state, who has held his arm in an upward position for several years, arrives at Sangam to participate in the upcoming Maha Kumbh Festival, in Allahabad on Dec 2. The Kumbh Mela is the largest gathering of people for a religious purpose in the world

and millions of people gather for this auspicious occasion. (AFP)