An official at a garment factory in Ashulia, on the industrial outskirts of Dhaka, has died after a fall at the facility, according to a report by The Daily Star. The death places the site at the centre of a dispute between police investigators and the deceased's family over what happened.

Police reviewing footage from the factory said the recording suggests the official took his own life. The family has rejected that reading and alleges he was murdered.

The case is now contested on two tracks: an official investigation anchored in CCTV evidence, and a family-led accusation of homicide. No charges have been reported at this stage.

What does the footage show?

Police told The Daily Star the footage indicates suicide. Investigators have used the recording as the primary basis for their preliminary reading of the death.

The family's counter-claim of murder has not been independently verified, and The Daily Star did not report additional evidence supporting it. Which account holds will depend on the course of the police investigation.

In plain terms: the two sides disagree on the most basic fact of the case, and only the investigation can settle it.

Why the sourcing tier matters

Ashulia is one of Bangladesh's core knitwear and garment production clusters, supplying major Western buyers. A violent or unexplained death inside a factory — whatever the cause — triggers a standard set of compliance consequences for brands sourcing from the site.

Buyer codes of conduct typically require suppliers to report workplace fatalities and cooperate with any resulting inquiry. Auditors will treat an unresolved allegation of murder inside a plant as a serious red flag until police close the file.

In plain terms: until investigators settle the cause of death, any brand linked to this factory carries an open compliance question.

What happens next?

The Daily Star report gives no date for a conclusion and names no arrests. The investigation proceeds on the police side; the family's murder allegation stands on the record.

The sourcing decision this news forces is narrow but real: compliance teams tied to the Ashulia facility should confirm the outcome of the police inquiry before treating this as a closed incident, and verify the factory's reporting against buyer code-of-conduct obligations on workplace deaths.