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Factories attacked, vehicles damaged during hartal

Staff Correspondent
At least 35 people were injured in .police clubbing and five factories vandalised in Dhaka during the daylong countrywide hartal and 24-hour strike enforAd by trade unionists yesterday to demand reopening of closed state-owned mills and" factories.
Workers across the country enforced the strike with some factory owners granting employees a day-off. Thousands walked out of work in Dhaka, Narayanganj and Khulna., while the hartal passed off without violence in Chittagong.
A procession by the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) that supported the hartal faced police resistance in Paltan, while the main opposition Awami League (AL) that threw its weight behind the strikers
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stayed off the streets.
The trade unionists who grouped under the Industrial Workers-Employees Protection Coordination Committee called the strike to demand reopening of closed mills and factories, a halt to the government's privatisation policy and implementation of minimum wages for industrial workers.
The 11-party alliance, Left Democratic Front, Workers Party of Bangladesh, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, Jatiya Sramik League, Jatiya Sramik Federation and Samajtantrik Sramik Front also extended support to the 13th hartal in six months and strike in mills and factories.
At least 1,000 garment workers gathered in Tejgaon Industrial Area at 8:00am to go on strike, a move that sparked an altercation with a factory owner as he refused to let his workers go.
A group of 25 then went on the rampage damaging Aparupa Garments, Associate Garments, Nasa Garments, Padma Polycon and Millennium Garments and Top Clean, a dry-cleaner's. They also vandalised six vehicles parked close-by.
At least 20 workers suffered minor injuries as the police clubbed the strikers after they hurled brickbats at law enforcers, who later picked up seven workers from the scene.
The police tried to prevent CPB
activists and other hartal supporters bringing out processions, prompting scuffles in front of the National Sports Council and Rupali Bank in Paltan, where the police picked up seven activists.
Hours later, law enforcers clubbed another procession of CPB activists and striking garment workersin front of the National Sports Council, grievously injuring three activists. The CPB leaders said police clubbing left at least 15 activists injured in Paltan.
The trade unionists' forum staged a hartal-hour rally in the capital, where speakers said they would launch a tough movementif the government did not take steps to protect the industries and workers.
A woman bus-passenger and her daughter were injured while getting down from a bus as its driver drove away recklessly amid a shower of brickbats at Paltan crossing. The strikers damaged the windshields of the bus.
Government offices ran their normal operations, but educational institutions remained closed during the hartal. Traffic was thin with only buses and autorickshaws plying major roads. Supermarkets and showrooms closed and long-haul bus services and air flights were suspended during the hartal.
The hartal in Barisal and the strike passed off peacefully.