DHAKA: Owners of a Bangladesh garment factory were forced to offer prayers and distribute food to the poor yesterday in a bid to drive out what workers believed was a ghost at the plant, police said.
Some 3,500 workers stopped work at the plant in Gazipur, north of Dhaka on Tuesday, and smashed furniture to demand action to remove the ghost, which some workers claimed had attacked them in the ladies’ washroom.
“The agitating workers refused to join duty and vandalised the factory after the management did not take any steps to drive out the ghost,” Gazipur industrial police inspector Showkat Kabir told AFP.
Kabir said the owners held special prayers — recitation of the Holy Quran and hymns in praise of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) — at the factory and also distributed food among the poor to drive out the “ghost”.
“All the workers, owners and the managers will join the prayers and the factory will reopen today after two days of shutdown due to the ghost-related protests,” he said. A medical expert said the “ghost attack” could be a sign of psychological distress in the wake of a series of deadly disasters involving garment workers in the past six months.
In April, 1,129 people were killed in one of the world’s worst industrial disasters after a nine-storey factory complex called Rana Plaza caved in trapping over 3,000 garment workers. Scores of workers had limbs amputated to rescue them from pancaked floors. AFP
