Two dead as Bangladesh garment workers protest low pay

DHAKA: Thousands of garment workers in Bangladesh walked off the job in protest at low wages on Monday, sparking clashes with security forces and damaging multiple factories in unrest that left at least two people dead, police said.

Bangladesh is one of the world´s largest garment exporters, with the industry accounting for 85 percent of the South Asian country´s $55 billion in annual exports, but conditions are dire for many of its four million apparel workers.

Police said at least 10,000 workers left their shifts and staged protests in Gazipur, the country´s largest industrial city, where a six-storey factory was torched, leading to one of the two fatalities.

Another 7,000 protested in the central towns of Ashulia and Hemayetpur, authorities said. Ashulia garment union leader Mohammad Ibrahim disputed the police figures, saying there were more than 100,000 protesters.

The worst violence erupted on a highway north of the capital Dhaka to Mymensingh, where at least 4,000 workers clashed with police, blocked the road and set fire to a pick-up truck, officers told AFP.

“One garment worker was injured during the clashes, and he died as he was taken to a hospital,” said Sarwar Alam, chief of the industrial police unit in Gazipur. “They hurled rocks at our officers like rain. Some policemen were injured during the clashes. We fired tear gas and sound grenades to disperse the workers.”