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Migrant workers desert Dhaka

Helemul Alam
The ongoing political violence is forcing hundreds of rural migrant workers to leave the capital only to face financial uncertainty back home.
Their everyday earnings have dropped so sharply due to back-to-back shutdowns that their survival in the city has become difficult, they say.
"Working as a rickshaw-puller in Dhaka is very risky these days, as pro-hartal pickets have no sympathy for us. They even throw crude bombs at us," said Moazzem I lossain, a rickshaw-puller in his forties.
"I no longer work during hartals for fear of attacks," he added.
Around 11:00pm Sunday, Moazzem and dozens of other workers, mostly rickshaw-pullers and vendors, were waiting at Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue for a ride to their village homes.
They were waiting for pick-up trucks that venture to other districts after midnight during hartal days and are thereby hard to come by.
Thousands of migrant workers left the
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capital before the current 84-hour-long shutdown that began on Sunday morning. Many more are flocking to different points in the capital, hoping to leave the city.
The 18-party opposition coalition had already observed 120 hours of hartal in two spells to press home their demand for a non-party caretaker government to oversee the next general elections.
As soon as a pick-up truck came into sight at Karwan Bazar, around four dozen people dashed forward in a body, hoping that it would drive long-distance. But it did not.
"I decided to stay in Dhaka on the first day of this hartal. But that day I was able to earn only Tk 200, which is less than half of what I earn on an average day," said Nayeb Ali, a rickshaw-puller in the city for
five years. He was trying to return to his village in Bogra.
"A rickshaw-puller needs to make at least Tk 400 to survive in the city, and that covers the payment to the rickshaw owner and three meals," Nayeb said. "I think I am better off working in agricultural fields back home."
Mohammad Azhar, who makes a living by vending toys on city streets, said he had managed to earn only aboutTk 800 in the last two weeks, which is why he decided to return home.
He added, "I have to provide for a four-member family but it becomes impossible when your earnings go down so steeply during hartals."
The workers were still waiting there for transport when this report was filed at about 11:30pm that night.