Bangladeshi garment worker shot dead by police during wage protests

A Bangladeshi garment worker has been shot dead by police as laborers take part in fresh protests over minimum wages in the impoverished country.

Bangladeshi garment workers have been protesting for weeks, demanding higher wages while claiming that their current pay is not enough and leaves them unable to make ends meet.

Protests around the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, erupted again on Wednesday prompting police to fire tear gas at thousands of workers.

A woman was shot dead by the police firing on the protesting garment workers, media reported.

"Police opened fire. She was shot in the head... She died in a car on the way to a hospital," said Mohammad Jamal, the husband of victim Anjuara Khatun, a 23-year-old sewing machine operator and mother of two.

Some 400 garment workers, who were demonstrating for better pay in the industrial city of Gazipur just outside the capital Dhaka, were shot upon by police, he said. "Six to seven people were shot at and injured."

A police inspector posted at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where the woman's body was transferred, confirmed the death, but could not give further details.

"They (protesters) hurled bricks at factories, cars, and police officers. We fired tear gas shells to disperse them," local police chief K.M. Ashraf Uddin told AFP, adding that some 4,000 workers took part in the Gazipur protests on Wednesday.

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Police also reported large protests in Gazipur on Tuesday. Police said some 10,000 workers walked out of garment factories and staged protests following news that authorities did not fully meet their demands to raise wages.

The Wednesday protests took place after a state-appointed board agreed to increase the minimum monthly wage for garment workers from 8,300 taka ($75) to 12,500 taka ( $114).

Protesters said the increase is not enough to survive, with workers demanding at least 22,000 taka ($209) to cover minimum expenses in Bangladesh.

Garment makers, for their part, claim they are struggling to survive amid the tight competition among clothing makers.

Bangladesh's 3,500 garment factories supply many of the world's top brands, including Levi's, Zara, and H&M.

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Meanwhile, thousands of police officers joined by paramilitary border guards are patrolling through the towns of Savar, Ashulia, Gazipur, and Hemayetpur, monitoring the tense situation at the many garment factories there.

Any dispute in the minimum wages of workers in Bangladesh is officially settled by the state-appointed board which includes representatives from the manufacturers and the workers' unions sides, plus economic experts, specializing in wages.

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