Workers of three state-owned jute mills in the Khalishpur industrial belt staged demonstrations on Monday bearing symbolic coffins and wearing shrouds to press for their eight-point demand, including immediate payment of their dues and abolition of the system of hiring labourers on daily basis.

The labourers of Crescent, Star and Platinum Jubilee Jute Mills staged the protests as per the decision of their rally on the Crescent Jute Mills premises on Friday under the banner of Khulna regional unit of ‘State-owned Jute Mills Labourers Welfare Committee’.

About 500 workers of the three mills gathered in front of the Platinum Jubilee Jute Mills and brought out a procession at around 10:30am but the police intercepted the marchers in People’s Square at BIDC Road. The demonstrators then returned to the PJJM premises and held a rally.

Labour leaders Gazi Masum, Sohrab Hossain, Matiar Munshi, Sadeque Ali, Mohammed Faruq, Abul Bashar, Mohammed Gaffar, Nurul Islam and Abdul Haque addressed the rally. The speakers said that the government was harassing the workers instead of meeting their legitimate demands which the authorities had agreed to fulfill by August 31.

They also threatened ‘self-immolation’ if the demands were not met by September 14. The demands also include providing all temporary labourers with gate passes, increasing wages of daily basis labourers and 25 per cent dearness allowance, stopping the activities of corrupt CBAs in the mills, payment for overtime work and allocation of enough funds in the next national budget to resuscitate the sick jute mills. The project heads of all seven state-owned jute mills in Khulna-Jessore region, meanwhile, left Khulna on Monday for Dhaka after being summoned to the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corpora-tion headquarters for an emergency meeting to be held today, said official sources at the Khulna regional office of the corporation.

According to official sources in BJMC, the workers’ salaries outstanding with Crescent, Platinum Jubilee and Star jute mills are Tk 4.27 crore, Tk 7.31 crore and Tk 2.35 crore respectively.