Garment workers demonstrating in Dhaka's Mirpur 10 roundabout area for a Tk30,000 minimum monthly wage clashed with police on Sunday, according to bdnews24.com. Officers deployed batons, water cannon, tear gas and sound grenades to break up the crowds, the outlet reported.
The confrontation was still under way at noon. Police had secured the Mirpur 10 roundabout, but traffic in the surrounding area had not returned to normal, bdnews24.com reported.
Why it matters
The unrest marks an escalation in a wage campaign that has disrupted the Mirpur area for days. Mirpur is home to a dense cluster of garment factories, and road blockades there ripple quickly into congestion across nearby neighbourhoods. The dispute also lands as the government moves on the workers' core demand: Labour Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury Arif announced on Sunday that a wage board would be formed for garment workers, according to bdnews24.com.
How the clash unfolded
According to police, the situation turned volatile after officers took one of the demonstrators into custody on suspicion of being a snatcher and held him at a police box. Protesters then converged on the box from several directions, and the clash with police began, bdnews24.com reported.
Abu Naser Rikabdar, deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Mirpur division, told bdnews24.com around noon that the clash was continuing and that officers were dispersing the crowd. He said fuller details would be provided later.
Earlier, from about 9am, workers from several garment factories in Mirpur gathered at the roundabout and blocked the road, halting vehicle movement through the junction and causing tailbacks in adjacent areas. Traffic police attempted to keep vehicles moving along alternative routes, bdnews24.com reported.
Jalal Uddin, officer-in-charge of Pallabi police station, said workers had been protesting on roads in Mirpur 10, 11 and 12 and nearby areas since the morning. Additional police had been deployed to manage the overall situation, and officers were working to clear the workers from the streets, he told bdnews24.com.
Mahfuzul Haque Bakshi, assistant commissioner of the Mirpur zone traffic division, said the garment workers had blocked roads again that day and that traffic through Mirpur 10 was suspended at the time. He said diversions were being used to try to restore normal movement.
A week of disruption
Sunday's confrontation followed several days of similar action. On Saturday, workers blocked roads in several parts of Mirpur, disrupting traffic at Mirpur 10, 11 and 12 and near the Proshika intersection, bdnews24.com reported.
On Thursday, several hundred workers came onto the road at the Mirpur 10 roundabout at about 9:30am. They later moved on but blocked the road again near Purbani cinema hall, by the metro rail's Mirpur 11 station, pressing the same demand. Traffic returned to normal in the afternoon after the workers dispersed, following blockades that lasted roughly six hours across the two spells, according to bdnews24.com.
The wage campaign has run for some time, with workers consistently calling for the minimum monthly pay to be raised to Tk30,000. The labour minister's announcement of a wage board on Sunday is the first concrete government step reported during the current round of protests.
What to watch: whether the new wage board's composition and timeline satisfy the workers, and whether police continue to clear the Mirpur roads or allow further gatherings.
