Dhaka: A man was killed and 50 others
were injured in Bangladesh on Sunday when police fired rubber
bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters demanding higher
wages, officials and witnesses said.
The violence erupted at Siddhirganj area of Narayangan
at the outskirts of the capital when workers at a
pharmaceutical company vandalised vehicles and obstructed
traffic movement at a major highway, they said.
"We were forced use rubber bullets and tear gas as the
workers turned violent," a police officer at the scene told
PTI.
One of the injured worker succumbed to his wounds at a
nearby hospital, he added.
A local journalist said some 500 workers, who were
demanding higher wages and enhanced retirement benefits,
ransacked the pharmaceutical company and then came out to the
highway to vandalise vehicles prompting the police action.
Bangladesh in recent years witnessed a spree of
factory violence mostly over wages in garments sector but this
was the first such incident of violent protest in a unit of
the country's booming pharmaceutical industry.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, January 23, 2011, 23:35