During the agitation of readymade garment (RMG) workers of the last few days, factories which pay on time, are compliant and offer all other facilities were vandalised, which shocked the owners.

Owners of these factories say that their factories were ransacked to get wider publicity for the agitation of the garment workers.

Since publicity cannot be assured by attacking unknown factories, the bigger ones are targeted, claim the owners.

In the last couple of days, factories of established groups like Hamim, Envoy, Pall Mall were vandalised.

Hamim Group is owned by former president of FBCCI, AK Azad while Envoy Group by MP and former president of BGMEA, Salam Murshedy.

This time, the factories of Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi also came under attack.

Salam Murshedy said, “By vandalising these factories, they wanted more publicity in the media and some of the factories attacked belong to people close to the government.”

“In our factories, workers get paid on time with increments, bonus and other facilities but the vandalism is done by workers of other factories.”

“Workers in my factory were forcibly prevented from working; I could have taken help from the police but since I am a minister, I refused to do that and had to remain a spectator to the vandalism,” added Tipu Munshi.

Commerce minister and state minister for labour both said that the movement has been infiltrated by outsiders.

Meanwhile, several sources of the home ministry say that the police are looking for those who instigated the workers.

The government fixed Tk 8,000 as opposed to the previous Tk 5,300 as the minimum wage for garment worker which was implemented from December 2018.