Dhaka, Oct. 2 -- The factory still stands, but almost everything that made it a workplace is gone.

At Rupshi in Narayanganj's Rupganj, the blackened skeleton of Gazi Tyres rises from a landscape of absence -- thousands of jobs, a local economy and a once-dominant place in Bangladesh's tyre market lost after the factory was attacked, looted and set ablaze.

Mohammad Ipon of Sherpur spent eight years at the factory, living nearby with his family. A regular salary kept them going until the change of government on Aug 5, 2024, when two rounds of arson and looting shut the factory and ended his job.

He found work at a local consumer-goods factory, but the lower pay was not enough. Eventually, he returned to his village, where he now farms in...