User talk:Khamin

February 4 is a very important anniversary for the workers of RR Textile and RR Jute Mills, owned by the Bawani group of Pakistan before the war currently state-owned, a day when they wear a black ribbon on their chests. This day is for workers coming from outside districts, remembering the seventeen workers killed here 36 years ago.

On the night of February 4, 1973, the mills’ colony was attacked, targeting the workers of the outer districts, including the workers Bashirullah, Shirajullah and Aziullah. The attackers were local people, side by side with local workers of the Barabkund union, Shitakund Thana at Chittagong. Seventeen were killed in their sleep. Hundreds were injured, of which 40 to 45 labourers were permanently crippled.

At 8pm that night around 350 labourers in the Textile and Jute Mills colony were getting ready to sleep after a hard day’s work. Most of the colony residents came from outer districts, particularly from Noakhali, Feni, Comilla, Madaripur, Brahmanbaria, and North Bengal. The local workers from the areas around the factory, Bashbaria and Barabkund, had left the factory and gone to their own homes to sleep.

At 8:30pm, a worker of RR Textiles, Ajiullah (23), after a hard day’s work entered his room, room three, which he shared with other labourers in the mills’ colony – four to six people shared each room. Ajiullah slept in the corner. Ajiullah was from Kompaniganj in Noakhali and his colleagues and roommates also came from several other districts.

At 11:00pm Ajiullah and the others suddenly woke and sprang from their beds with fear. There was uproar in the colony. They could hear people shouting and the sound of locally made guns firing. The colony was beside the mills, situated under bushy hills. Only barbed wire secured the factory area.

‘I saw through the window of my room. Hannan was stabbed in his abdomen by a hired local koshai (assassin). His entrails spilled out and Hannan fell to the ground,’ recalls Ajiullah, who is now 59 years old and retired in 2002 from the textile mill. Hannan survived, and the labourers began to call him Pet Kata Hannan.

‘Local workers set the colony on fire, inside and outside. In the light of the fire we could see that there were around 15 professional assassins firing guns, plus 20 to 30 locals with sharp ‘chapati’, knives and sticks, including local labourers, moving to attack us and shouting “Come out, bideshi’ with expletives,’ Mofizur Rahman, another survivor and one of the trade union leaders of both mills narrates.

The riot continued for an hour and a half. The labourers fled for safety. Some were fleeing to the hills, a few to the neighbouring factories and a few to the Feni-Chittagong highway.

‘Eventually the police arrived from the Sitakund police station and whistled around the colony, charging with batons. Later the police called in the Rakkhi Bahini (paramilitary forces) at 1 or 2pm that night. Within half an hour of the Rakkhi Bahini’s arrival, the situation was under control,’ relates a current worker of RR Textile, Akbar Hossain (45), who was ten years old at the time of riot. Akbar Hossain’s father Muzammel Hossain is another survivor from the riot, now a retired labourer of RR textile who used to live beside the colony with his family.

‘The assassins came to kill the trade union leader Habib Ullah Bahar and trade union members Abul Hossain Sarder, Rahim Sarder, Nurul Huda, Tabarak Ullah, Nurul Hoque Khan, Rahim Sarder and Kuddus Sarder. But by the grace of the almighty they all survived,’ says Aziullah, another labourer of RR Textile. Aziullah was staying at Room eight at the colony.

The morning after, February 5, saw the dead bodies loaded onto trucks and injured workers loaded into ambulances. Within a short time, under supervision of the police, the severely injured were sent to the hospital. ‘A total of seventeen dead bodies of labourers plus a beggar and a shopkeeper were all loaded,’ recounts an eyewitness from RR Textile and Jute Mills who survived and retired from the industry.

Hundreds of labourers from several industries of the Sitakunda belt were enraged after hearing of the killings. All the labourers gathered to the RR Textile and Jute Mills and stopped work, calling a countrywide hartal. It was the first workers’ spontaneous hartal in Bangladesh. Workers congregated at the Feni-Chittagong highway led by their leaders from the East Pakistan chemical industries (now Chittagong Chemical Industries), Galfra Habib, Moqbulur Rahman Jute Mills, Anwara Jute Mills, Gul Ahmed Jute Mills, Hafiz Jute Mills and MM Jute Mills, FKM Jute Mills, Victoria Jute Mills. The workers’ movement rapidly spread from Ispahani Gate of the Ispahani industries to all over across Sitakund.

At the same time a movement for the nationalisation of all industries in Bangladesh was being led by the convenor of Purba Pakistan Sramik Federation Chittagong zone (East Pakistan Labour Federation) ATM Nizam Uddin and assistant convenor Khalequzzaman. This nationalisation movement joined hands with the riot at the mills’ colony and the movement added a new angle to the workers’ protest.

The trade union leader and secretary of RR Textile, Habib Ullah Bahar and trade union members Belayet Hossain of RR Jute Mill, Suleman Sharder and Abdul Aziz along with thousands of workers created a wood blockade at the Feni-Chittagong highway and Feni railway station starting February 5 which ran over 15 days.

‘Duniar Majdur Ek How’ (all workers come together) was the slogan spreading all over Bangladesh from several industries. ‘The movement spread all over with four to five groups working for the movement. It later turned into the non-cooperation movement of workers who refused to work in all industries across the country,’ remembers Nurul Huda, a workers’ leader in Barabkund.

There were three major centres of the movement. One movement took place at Feni, led by Habib Ullah Bahar, secretary of RR Textile and Jute Mills. Another movement was led by ATM Nizam Uddin and Khalequzzaman, the convener and assistant convenor of the Chittagong zone of the East Pakistan Trade Federation from the East Pakistan Chemical Industries. The third movement came from Victoria Jute Mills, led by Khaleq Sarder, Rahmat Ullah and Badruduzza Chowdhury. All workers and leaders came on the same platform under the banner ‘Khunider Bichar Chai’ (We want trial of the killers).

On the morning of February 6, then prime minister of the then interim Bangladeshi government, Tajuddin Ahmad reached the field of RR Textile and Jute Mills by helicopter, and promised the workers that justice will be served. He requested the workers to stop the protest and return to their work at the industries. By this time, President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman also called a meeting with law enforcement officials, commerce minister MR Siddiqui and labour minister Jahur Ahmed to solve the problem of the ongoing unrest. After 15 days, the protest movements ended and the situation came under the control of the state.

By the order of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, inspector general of police A Hoque and Yousuf Ali Miah, superintendent of the Chittagong Criminal Investigation Department (CID), were assigned to the investigation of these killings. Meanwhile trade union leader Bahar filed a case against the authorities, the local workers and local people. The case number 5, dt, 5-2-73u/s was filed at the Sitakund police station and was run under the sections 147/148/149/ 302/326 which included murder. Of the 142 accused, 51 officials, local workers and locals were given five to seven years imprisonment while 91 others were released. The judgment came at a very sensitive time for the nation, because the first national election was scheduled for the next month on March 7, 1973.

This incident, later known as the ‘Barabkund incident’, came to be known as the first mass slaughter of workers in post-independence Bangladesh.

‘This incident was the aftermath of the politicisation of the trade unions by the state. The Barabkund incident was an attempt of trade union hijacking by the state,’ says professor Dr Abu Taher, chair of the department of management studies at University of Chittagong and an industrial relations expert. Taher explains that most trade unions in the country were led by left political organisations at the time and when the government in power Awami League tried to penetrate these organisations, a deep divide emerged between various factions, finding paltry issues to fight over, including provincialism.

Background

‘After the liberation war, from February till December, the interim government was busy reorganising the management structure of all the industries in Bangladesh. The dominant local politicians along with certain industries’ administrators were busy looting property,’ recalls Bahar.

‘RR Textile and Jute Mills was being looted by the newly recruited administrator Hefazetur Rahman. Rahman and the local resident trade union leader Didarul Alam (trade union president of both the RR Textile and Jute Mills) along with local workers and politicians stole Taka one crore 30 lakh worth spinning thread and cash from the mills without any legal documents,’ adds Bahar who had later collected proof of this and submitted it to the government.

When Bahar tried to stop this looting, Rahman offered him Taka ten lakh cash and another two or three lakh for his supporters. When he refused the offer, Rahman made several death threats. As the outsider workers held most of the posts in the Collective Bargaining Association (CBA) election, the local workers and locals supported Rahman.

Barabkund Incident in 1973 and recounts the corrupting factors that led to the first nationwide workers movement in newly independent Bangladesh

At that time, local resident and trade union president of RR Textile and Jute Mills, Didarul Alam, was involved in this plundering and was patronised by the local politicians of the time.

Apart from this, local and national level politicians both wanted the politicisation of the CBA. The leaders and their workers demanded that the JSD-backed Jatiya Sramik Shanga (national trade union) join the Awami League-backed Jatya Sramik League within seven days. The Jatiya Sramik Shanga won most of the posts in the first ever CBA election of Bangladesh covering the seven most dominating industries, while Jatiya Sramik League won only a few postitions.

‘In the politicisation of the CBA, Didarul Alam, local resident and leader of Jatiya Sramik League, local politicians MA Hannan, MR Siddiqui, Jahur Alam Chowdhury and Hefajetur Rahman, administrator of RR Textile and Jute Mills, were all involved,’ says Azizullah, a retired worker and eyewitness of the incident.

‘In considering the Barabkund incident three major factors must be kept in mind. One is the tendency of looting by local workers, local politicians and trade leaders after the interim government and before the national election. Another is the politicisation of the CBA, and the last one is not look to at it as merely a local clash between workers,’ says Khalequzzaman, who was the trade union leader at that time of the East Pakistan Chemical Industries at Barabkund. He is now the convenor of Socialist Party of Bangladesh (SPB).

‘All of these occurrences led to the Barabkund incident. It is a very significant incident in the history of workers class in Bangladesh,’ Khalequzzaman adds. ‘Later this incident was purposefully interpreted as localism by politicians, turning it into a clash between local and outsider workers.’