C T Online Desk: Shops in and around the New Market in capital Dhaka have started to reopen on Thursday morning hours after traders reached a broad agreement with Dhaka College students following deadly clashes that left businesses closed for two days.
The consensus to reopen businesses came at a nearly four hours long meeting between traders and students from Wednesday midnight.
Around 10am, three out of the four entrances to the New Market, were opened.
Thousands of shops in the New Market area have counted losses due to the closure for two days amid the Eid-ul-Fitr shopping season after violence erupted in the wee hours of Tuesday.
Shop workers clashed with the students for nearly two and a half hours before police dispersed them using tear gas and rubber bullets. But the clashes resumed in the morning.
According to shop owners, said the Dhaka College students were dragged into a feud between workers at two food shops, which led to the violence.
The clashes throughout Tuesday left two people dead and more than 200 people injured, including students, pedestrians, journalists and shop workers.
On Wednesday, traffic resumed on the street with very few shops reopening and white flags were seen fluttering from several shopping malls.
At the New Market and other malls, shopkeepers waited inside with the entrances closed with the hope of resuming business.
But traffic came to halt and shutters went down after at ten crude bombs exploded outside the Dhaka College.
A delegation of 10 students held the meeting with four representatives of the businesses at the Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR). Teachers and representatives from the home and education ministries and police also joined the meeting that started in midnight and lasted for almost four hours.
