The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Readymade Garment factory owners in Gazipur yesterday threatened factory closure unless the government ensures security of their establishments by September 25.

Owners of nearly 100 RMG units from the area met BGMEA president Anwar-ul-Alam Chowdhury Parvez yesterday noon and gave the deadline in a memorandum handed to their leader. About 810 readymade garment units are located in Gazipur area where nearly 10-lakh labourers are working.

"In recent times, incidents of attack, ransacking and arson in the garments factories in Gazipur have been rampant. The planned ransacking of the factories costs us nearly Tk 800 crore," Rashid Ahmed Hossainy of Nexus Group told newsmen.

"Some people posing as workers are behind these terrorist acts. All of us, factory workers, executives, owners are feeling insecure," said Hossainy, who is a signatory of the Saturday memorandum.

He said that they had requested the government time and again for security but got no feedback. The Gazipur owners also handed over a "token key" to the BGMEA president as an expression of their plan to put all their factories under lock and key.

The garment factory owners also placed 8 point demands that includes stoppage of attack and ransacking, creating appropriate environment for keeping factories open, arrest of the attackers and their godfathers, ensure top level security to the investment and investors, providing soft loan to the factory owners whose establishments were under attack and increasing number of police station in Gazipur district. BGMEA president Anwar-ul-Alam Chowdhury Parvez said it was a serious development. "I have taken the contents of the memorandum seriously and called an emergency board meeting.

The BGMEA president said the decisions of the board meeting would be "conveyed to the appropriate government authority on an emergency basis".

The desperate garment owners had earlier met in a club in Dhaka to decide their course of action.