Police deployed stun grenades, tear gas, and batons on Saturday afternoon to clear protesting garment workers from the busy Dhaka–Tangail Highway in Gazipur’s Kaliakair upazila. Traffic resumed along the vital arterial route at approximately 12:30 pm after a four-hour blockade that stranded thousands of commuters and freight vehicles.
Simultaneously, escalating industrial unrest has prompted factory owners in the neighbouring industrial hubs of Savar and Ashulia to declare around 40 garment factories closed indefinitely. Notices pasted on factory gates cite ongoing labour agitation, strikes, and unstable working conditions, with several facilities invoking Section 13(1) of the Bangladesh Labour Act—a legal provision enforcing a strict “no work, no pay” policy during periods of illegal strikes or unrest.
Highway Stand-off in Chandra and Mouchak
The latest flashpoint began at around 8:30 am on Saturday, when workers gathered to block the Dhaka–Tangail Highway in the Chandra Palli Bidyut area. The demonstration was sparked by rumours claiming that a worker injured during Thursday’s police action at two local factories—Tropical in Chandra Palli Bidyut and Apex Lingerie in Purba Chandra—had died.
Law enforcement personnel, alongside Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) troops, initially attempted to negotiate with the demonstrators to clear the carriageway. When the crowd refused to disperse, tensions boiled over. At midday, police charged with batons and fired tear gas shells and sound grenades to scatter the protesters. Shortly afterwards, demonstrators regrouped to stage a secondary blockade in the nearby Mouchak area, prompting another police dispersal operation at 12:30 pm before normal traffic flow was restored.
Kabir Hossain, one of the protesting workers, explained the motivation behind the walkout. “Several of our colleagues were injured on Thursday,” he said. “When news spread this morning that one of them had died, panic set in among us. We stopped work and took to the streets in protest, demanding a wage hike alongside our legitimate rights.”
Following the disturbances, authorities declared a holiday across 17 factories in the vicinity of Chandra and Mouchak, according to Md Amjad Hossain, Superintendent of Police for the Gazipur Industrial Zone.
Widespread Closures Across Savar and Ashulia
While the highway blockade disrupted Gazipur, the fallout from days of wage protests paralysed operations across Savar and Ashulia, key pillars of Bangladesh’s multi-billion-dollar ready-made garment export sector.
Mohammad Mominul Islam Bhuiyan, Superintendent of Ashulia Industrial Police-1, reported at 1:30 pm that production had come to a standstill across roughly 59 factories in the belt. Of these, 18 factories were shuttered under Section 13(1) of the Labour Act, meaning employees will receive no wages until operations resume. A further 17 factories were declared closed indefinitely under standard rules—where workers remain entitled to closure pay—while five were shut following verbal directives. Additionally, seven factories declared a scheduled holiday, and 12 others sent workers home after employees refused to work.
Among the affected enterprises is the Lusaka Group in Ashulia’s Zirabo Pukurpar area. On Thursday, protesters from neighbouring units hurled brickbats at the group’s Beak Knit Limited facility, prompting management to grant immediate leave for safety reasons. On Friday, the group issued a formal notice shutting all its units indefinitely from Saturday, 14 November, citing “unruly and anarchic conditions” triggered by nationwide wage hike demands.
A female machine operator at Beak Knit Limited expressed frustration over the shutdown. “There was no trouble inside our own office; the unrest was at the factory next door,” she said. “After they were given leave, outsiders came, smashed our gate, and assaulted our security guards. Now our factory is closed because others shut down, leaving us to suffer through no fault of our own.”
Union Concerns Over Retaliation
Labour leaders have warned that factory owners may exploit the unrest to penalise workers. Khairul Mamun, Legal Secretary of the Bangladesh Garments and Sweaters Workers Trade Union Centre, noted that genuine grievances—such as unpaid arrears, excessive workloads, and workplace misconduct—were confined to roughly 12 to 14 factories.
“External miscreants took advantage of that frustration to manufacture instability, and now the owners are seizing the opportunity,” Mamun said, urging the government to ensure that the wave of indefinite closures does not lead to arbitrary mass redundancies.
