Attack, vandalism in Gazipur over control of ‘cloth scrap’ business

An apparel factory in Garipur’s Sreepur Upazila has been attacked and vandalised over the control of a business tied to cloth scraps and waste fabric, referred to locally as ‘jhut’.

Panic over the incident disrupted traffic on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway for half an hour.

The incident occurred in front of SQ Group’s SQ Celsius Ltd Sweater Factory at the south end of Mawna intersection in Sreepur around 10am on Wednesday, said local police station chief Joynal Abedin Mandal.

FM Niyaz Elahi Khan, general manager (admin) of SQ Group, was accused of granting a work order to a group in exchange for a massive amount of money. The news sparked anger among the people of other organisations who had bid for the same job, leading to the unrest, according to locals.

They said the unrest over the ‘jhut’ business had worsened in the area as the work had not been distributed properly.

Joynal Abedin, head of human resources at SQ Celsius Ltd, said: “Several local institutions had submitted applications for the work order of the factory’s ‘jhut’ business. The authorities later granted the order to SM Palash, owner of Chanchal Enterprise.”

Palash said, “The factory had given me the order. According to that, I sent two pickup vans to the factory to collect the fabric waste early on Wednesday.”

“The people of Abul Kalam later took up positions in front of the factory with sticks. At one point, they carried out an attack on my office outside the factory. Around eight to 10 motorcycles were vandalised at that time.”

Local police chief Joynal said, “The mayhem broke out in front of the factory between the supporters of SM Palash, member secretary of Chhatra Dal’s Sreepur wing, and Abul Kalam Azad. No vandalism occurred inside the factory. The situation is normal now and the factory is operational.”

Denying the allegation of an attack, Azad said: “The allegation brought against me over the attack is incorrect. I am currently in Dhaka for some personal business. I don’t know anything about those involved in the incident.”

“In addition, I didn’t submit any application for the work order at SQ Celsius Ltd. The factory authorities will not be able to show any such document.”

Attempts were made to contact Niyaz over the allegation of exchanging money for the work order, but he did not respond to bdnews24.com’s phone calls.