On Thursday morning, at least 25 people, including five police officers, were injured in confrontations between garment workers and police in the Mirpur area of Dhaka. Various areas of Gazipur also experienced labor disruption on the same day, with police using tear gas to disperse agitated workers. The garments workers, particularly in Dhaka and Gazipur, are now on movement for over a week demanding increase of their monthly wages and clashes with law enforcement agencies and street protests occurred in past three days. In light of this, Border Guard Bangladesh personnel were deployed in Dhaka and neighboring areas on Thursday to secure the factories and prevent any acts of vandalism.
According to witnesses in Dhaka, several thousand workers from various garment factories in Mirpur began demonstrating at the Mirpur- 11 intersection in the morning, disrupting traffic flow on the surrounding roads. At approximately 11:00 a.m., the police used tear gas and baton charges to disperse agitated laborers, resulting in at least 25 injuries. Since the morning, workers have reportedly been demonstrating peacefully to urge their demand for a minimum wage of Tk 23,000. However, police assaulted them, resulting in 20 injured workers, they said. Pallabi police station in charge Md Mahfuzur Rahman said that police asked workers to vacate the road for traffic but workers engage in clash leaving five policemen injured.
Source: New Age