Bangladesh Useable Cotton Merchants Association (BUCMA) at a press conference in Dhaka urged the government not to evict them from Tongi without providing them with suitable and alternative place for continuing their business.

Rajdhani Unnayan Katripakkha (Rajuk) conducted an eviction drive on December 14 and demolished over 500 shops of garment factory wastes, locally known as 'jhut', at Tongi. The authority has decided to evict the remaining shops shortly.

Some 1,200 workers, most of them women, have already become jobless due to the eviction drive and several thousand others will lose jobs if the remaining 3,500 shops are evicted, BUCMA President Abdul Latif said.

He also announced a series of programmes to realise their demand and prevent the government from conducting the second eviction drive.

The association will lay siege on Tongi Municipality on January 4, hold protest rally at Tongi on January 5 and submit a memorandum to deputy commissioner of Gazipur on January 7 before staging similar demonstrations in Dhaka.

The BUCMA president said they are contributing to the economy by exporting a kind of cotton, made from garment wastes, for using in mattress, pillow and quilt. The wastes are processed in local technology to produce the cotton.

"We are exporting this product to Nepal, Bhutan and India," Latif said adding that the disruption in production caused by the eviction would create problems for the exporters to meet the export deadline.