Demanding payment of their October wages, workers from four Ready-Made Garment (RMG) factories operated by the AJI Group, which is owned by movie star Ananta Jalil, protested on the Hemayetpur-Singair route. More than a thousand workers blocked the road in front of the AJI Group Industrial Park on Thursday night to start the protest.
When the workers did not receive their money as promised, they blocked the road in protest. The workers had been told by management that their wages would be paid on November 14. Assuring the workers that their pay cheques would be processed that day, Ananta Jalil personally stepped in to resolve the issue.
Many workers complained that they had not received their wages even after the blockade was initially lifted. Some employees did receive their payments via the Rocket mobile finance service at noon on Thursday of the following week. But as many others continued to go unpaid after their hours finished at 7 PM, their discontent grew, and they decided to continue the demonstration.
Md. Sarwar Alam, the superintendent of Industrial Police-1, stated that while the majority of workers had got their compensation, 400–500 were still awaiting payment.
When asked to provide a statement, Ananta Jalil allegedly said that technical difficulties were the cause of the payment delays that affected some 300–400 of the 10,000 workers, promising that the payments would be processed by midnight. By 9 PM, Jalil said, an army team had come to help and told the workers to come into the plant with their ID cards so they could get paid in cash. There were only approximately 90 workers there at the time, he said.
Given that many employees who were entitled to compensation had fled the protest site, Jalil speculated that outsiders might have made matters worse.
