Miscreants set fire to a garment factory complex of Standard Group at Gazipur’s Konabari in the early hours of Friday.
They mobilised local people, amid the labour unrest, to carry out the arson by making announcements through loudspeakers.
Police call it an act of sabotage.
Even after seven hours of frantic efforts, fire fighters have not been able to control the fire.
The miscreants also burnt down 18 covered vans. Of them, seven were loaded with goods.
Factory authorities claim ‘outside workers’ are responsible for the arson.
Fire could be controlled only at two six-storey buildings and two adjoining packaging shades at the end of the night. But it is still raging at a 10-storey building of the complex even after 9am, says a Senior Officer at Joydevpur Fire Service and Abu Jafar Ahmed of Civil Defence.
Each building was separately set on fire, beginning with the third floor of the 10-storey building, the firemen say.
It turned into an inferno after spreading to the storehouses, containing chemicals and other goods, located in a six-storey building adjacent to the 10-storey building.
Panic gripped the locality as news of the inferno broke out. The whole locality was soon engulfed with black smoke.
Abu Zafar Ahmed says firemen from Joydevpur, Kaliakair, Tongi and Savar are trying to douse the fire.
There is however no report of any casualties till morning.
“It appears that this fire is an act of sabotage,” says Assistant Superintendent of Gazipur Industrial Police Mosharraf Hossain.
Police, factory workers and locals says some ‘outside’ workers held demonstrations there on Thursday morning. They asked Standard Group factory workers to come out and join them.
But the factory workers turned down the call. The outsiders then started pelting stones at the factory, they add.
Some more ‘outside’ workers joined the demonstrators around 10pm, when security guards of the factory were changing shifts.
As they started pelting stones at the factory, management decided to close the factory for the day, says General Manager of the Standard Group Nur-e-Alam.
Police soon rushed to the scene and fired rubber bullets and tear gas canisters to disperse the mob, witnesses say.
Rumours of two workers being killed in police firing were spread. Following which, a few thousand people were mobilised outside the Standard Group’s factory complex by making announcements through loudspeakers.
They vandalised the garment complex and set fire to the buildings around 12 midnight.
Fourteen units of fire brigade rushed to the scene.
The attackers also burned down 18 covered vans parked at the garment complex. Of them, seven were laden with garment goods meant for exports, says General Manager Alam. – bdnews24.com
