Violent agitation by garment workers on October 31, 2009 resulted in the death of three workers, left over hundred injured and a large number arrested. Labour unrest in garment sector has been brewing over work conditions, wage disputes and payment problems.
Non-payment of back wages in a factory owned by BNP MP Salauddin Qader Chowdhury’s (SQC) family on the outskirts of Dhaka sparked off the agitation. Workers’ violence was mainly provoked by a group of motor cycle borne miscreants who attacked the workers protesting in front of the factory.
The agent provocateurs are said to be Chhatra Dal and Jubo Dal (Student and Youth front of the BNP respectively), who arrived wearing helmet to conceal their identity.
Why would a BNP leader use his party’s storm troopers to create violence at his own factory? The answer is found as much in the BNP politics as in the business policies of Salauddin Qader Chowdhury, who is a long standing ISI agent of influence in Bangladesh.
Garment trade circles are aware of multiple ISI – criminal nexus of SQC but they are so intimidated by his strength that they prefer to off the subject at least in public. SQC’s role in the recent BDR mutiny is gradually coming to the fore as the investigating agencies are unraveling the jigsaw.
Inquiries show the provocation for creation of unrest in the garment industry is to project the ruling Awami League in bad light. And to accuse a ‘foreign country’ (read India) of sabotaging Bangladesh’s largest foreign exchange earning sector. The charges have been leveled by none other than BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and the party’s Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossen. Needless to say, frustrated garment workers were provoked for a political end -to raise anti-Awami League and to whip up anti-India sentiments.
Media reports in Dhaka show that the opposition BNP has not reconciled to the worst ever debacle in the fairest ever elections held in Bangladesh in December 2008. Salauddin Qader Chowdhury has been leading the charge against the government on behalf of the opposition BNP-JEI alliance.
SQC has threatened to bring down the Awami League Govt before it completed its term. So more anti- Awami League and anti-India attacks can be expected in the days to come in order to boost the sagging morale of the BNP cadres.
Already, SQC and his colleagues in the BNP have picked up several issues. These range from Tipaimukh dam, BDR-BSF exchanges, Tin Bigha corridor, and South Talpatty Island to the gas and oil reserves in the undemarcated continental shelf where Bangladesh has a dispute with India and Myanmar.
SQC’s Pak connections are well known. It may be pertinent to mention that when the former Army chief of Bangladesh Gen Moeen, who was the main force behind the Army backed caretaker government that ruled the country for two years, visited Pakistan in 2008, the only political personality the Pak authorities mentioned to the visiting Army chief was SQC; they were explicit in enquiring about the well-being of only SQC who was held in a Dhaka jail along with several corrupt politicians, and not Sheikh Hasina or Khaleda Zia who were also imprisoned.
