Labour protest at Airport Road dispersed after five hours

The police have dispersed the ready-made garment workers who blocked both sides of Dhaka’s Airport Road for a second day, said Assistant Commissioner of Police for the Airport Zone Mizanur Rahman.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 7 Jan 2019, 08:01 AM
Updated : 7 Jan 2019, 12:03 PM

The garment workers were protesting for an increase in the minimum wage and to press for a series of other demands.

After a five-hour long protest on Sunday, garment workers once again took to the streets at 9 am on Monday.

The protests brought the traffic on the crucial Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway to a standstill. A bus was also set on fire during the demonstration.

The traffic at the vital intersection in front of Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport slowly began moving around 2:20 pm after the workers were dispersed by the police, said Mizanur Rahman.

The protests began at 9:30 am on Sunday after hundreds of garment workers from various garment factories in Uttara blocked the road from Azampur to Jashimuddin Road and caused traffic gridlock on the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway.

The garment workers had eventually cleared the streets after five hours of protest around 2pm before announcing plans to resume their protest on Monday.

The workers poured into the key road around 9am, Assistant Commissioner of Police for the Airport Zone Mizanur Rahman told bdnews24.com.

“They chanted the same slogans as they did on Sunday. The traffic stalled in the Azampur, Jasimuddin Crossing and Airport Road areas.”

The traffic in Uttara’s Azampur came to a standstill around 11:30 am after the garment workers took to the streets in protest, according to the Traffic Control Room of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Later around 12:30 pm, traffic in front of the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport came to a halt.

A bus operated by Ena Paribahan was vandalised by the workers before they set it on fire on the road near the Dhaka airport around 1:00 pm, a bdnews24.com photojournalist reported from the scene.

When the situation failed to improve, 10 garment factory owners met with police to discuss the matter around 2 pm, said OC of Uttara West Police Ali Hossain.

A sizeable police force subsequently dispersed the protesters from the streets. The traffic in the area gradually began to move around 20 minutes later, said Ali Hossain.

It is still unclear if the protesters will take to the streets again on Tuesday.