300 people sued

Police lodged a case with Daulatpur Police Station in Khulna city Thursday night accusing 250 to 300 people of attacking Pabla police box under the police station Thursday morning.
The day was the last day of the state-owned jute mill workers’ countrywide 72-hour strike while a four-hour road and railway blockade was in progress for the third consecutive day on the day.
Sub-Inspector Amit Kumar Bagchi filed the case for the ‘attack’ that left at least four cops injured, said Sub-Inspector Saiful Islam of the police station.
The state-owned jute mill workers enforced the strike between Tuesday 6:00am and Friday 6:00am and the blockade for four hours from 8:00am between Tuesday and Thursday for their nine-point demands, including wage hike and payment of dues.
The Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation, on the other hand, called the leaders of the Collective Bargaining Agents of all the 26 state-owned jute mills of the country and of Patkol Sramik League to sit in a meeting at the BJMC office in Dhaka on Saturday (today) to discuss the demands, BJMC officials said.
‘The BJMC chairman has called the leaders of Patkol Sramik League and the CBAs of all the jute mills to a meeting at the BJMC conference room at 11:30am on Saturday,’ Md Murad Hossain, president of the CBA of Crescent Jute Mills, Khulna, and also the Khulna-Jashore regional convener of Patkol Sramik League, told New Age.
‘We have been invited to discuss our demands for which we have been in agitation,’ he said.
The demands include: adequate budgetary allocation for the jute sector, payment of the due provident fund and gratuity to the retired workers and the insurance benefits to the families of the deceased workers, implementation of the recommendations of the National Wage and Productivity Commission 2015, appointment of workers, regularisation of temporary workers, reappointment of sacked workers and the balancing, modernisation, rehabilitation and expansion of the jute mills for better productivity.
Terming the demands justified, Communist Party of Bangladesh in a statement on Friday urged the government to meet all the demands.
In the case registered with Daulatpur Police Station, it was alleged that 50 to 60 people, during the jute mill workers’ demonstration, gathered on the rail line at the eastern side of Khulna Filling Station and were trying to remove the slippers of the line while city Special Branch constable Moniruzzaman was videotaping the scene with his mobile phone.
Daulatpur Police Station officials said the accused people then confined the cop on the spot and when other cops rescued and took him away near Natun Rasta 250 to 300 people armed with sharp weapons and sticks attacked the Pabla police box, threw brick bats on the police personnel, obstructed the police in performing their duties, vandalized the police boxt and left four cops injured,.
SI Saiful informed that they were trying to identify the attackers and to ascertain if they were from among the protesting workers.
They have collected CCTV footage and photographs published in different newspapers and are using their own sources to identify the attackers, Saiful added.
The police officer said none was arrested in this connection till Friday evening.
 

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net