Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has accused people across the border of pulling strings behind workers’ demands to create chaos in the country. He said no working person could ever harm their own factory, yet a group was going into factories and carrying out vandalism and destruction.
He made the accusation at a roadside rally at the Katakhali intersection on the Khulna-Mongla highway in Bagerhat on Thursday afternoon.
The prime minister said the industries built in the country over the past 50 years were among Bangladesh’s main sources of foreign currency. Millions of women and working people are employed in them, he said. “These factories are the country’s wealth, the people’s wealth.”
Garment workers recently staged continuous protests in Dhaka and the surrounding districts demanding a minimum wage of Tk 30,000. Protesters clashed with police, and various facilities were vandalised.
Describing these acts as attempts to destroy industry, the prime minister said: “We have seen in various newspapers and media that some unruly people are going to factories, vandalising them and trying to destroy industrial establishments. I believe no working brother or sister, no worker, can ever harm industry.”
In a reference to the Awami League government, he said a group had failed to change the fortunes of the people over the past 15 to 16 years. They took away people’s right to vote and looted the country’s wealth and smuggled it abroad, he said. Those who were forced to flee the country in the face of the mass uprising are now pulling strings from across the border and trying to create chaos in the country, he alleged.
The prime minister said a new minimum wage for garment workers would be set within one to two months. “Our worker brothers and sisters have some demands about wages, and the government is aware of them. A wage board has already been formed to consider and review their demands. The board has also started work. God willing, a new minimum wage will be set in the next one to two months so that our worker brothers and sisters can live well,” he said.
The rally was chaired by Bagerhat district BNP leader Barrister Zakir Hossain. Present were Sheikh Rabiul Alam, Minister for Shipping, Road Transport and Bridges, and Railways; Md Rajib Ahsan, State Minister for Shipping; Dr Sheikh Faridul Islam, State Minister for Environment and Climate Change; district BNP leaders Somnath Dey and Kapil Krishna Mondal; and local leaders of the BNP and its associate bodies.
After the rally, the prime minister visited the shrine of Hazrat Khan Jahan Ali and joined prayers there.
Earlier in the morning, he attended the signing of a memorandum of understanding on economic and infrastructure cooperation between Invest Bangladesh and China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) at Mongla port. He then laid the foundation stone of the Mongla port expansion and modernisation project.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report