New Delhi, Nov. 4 -- Dhaka; Activists of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Wednesday took to the streets in "anti-protest" campaigns while authorities deployed additional paramilitary forces as garment workers' protests over higher wages continued for a fifth day.
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association officials said 50 factories were shut down in suburban Gazipur fearing backlash over the death of a previously injured worker during the current wave of protests.
According to local media reports, the protesters set ablaze a police van in suburban Savar industrial area during clashes that blocked the major Dhaka-Aricha highway.
BNP activists carrying bamboo sticks took to the streets to "maintain order and resist infiltrators" as the party earlier alleged that activists of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina's now disbanded Awami League had infiltrated among the workers.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's Information Affairs Adviser Zahedur Rahman on Tuesday accused Hasina of fuelling the unrest. "I do not believe Sheikh Hasina will let the government remain in peace as long as she is alive. As long as Hasina would remain alive, acts of sabotage could continue," he told a media briefing, alleging that the ousted premier is an architect of the protests. The remarks marked a shift from Rahman's earlier assertion that Hasina and her disbanded Awami League were politically irrelevant in Bangladesh. Hasina fled to India after her government was ousted in a student-led uprising on August 5, 2024. A special tribunal during the subsequent interim government led by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus later sentenced her to death in absentia.
The violent protests prompted Bangladesh to constitute on Sunday a six-member Wage Board led by a senior district judge which in its first meeting on Wednesday agreed to finalise their recommendation in a month.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.