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Garment workers demanding higher pay clashed with police and stormed factories in an industrial belt on the outskirts of Bangladesh's capital Dhaka.
Industrial Police director Mustafizur Rahman said that at least 100 factories had been closed in the Ashulia and Savar areas to avoid further violence.
Another official said paramilitary border guards had been called in to help police.
The workers have rejected a government-proposed 5,300 taka (£42) monthly minimum wage and are demanding 8,114 takas (£65).
The present minimum monthly wage of £24 is around half that of rival Asian exporters Vietnam and Cambodia and just over a quarter of the rate in top exporter China, according to International Labour Organisation data from August.
Factory owners claim that they cannot afford even the 77 per cent rise proposed by the country's wages board.
Even if implemented, the £42 wage would still be the lowest monthly minimum in the world.
Bosses insist that such a rise would destroy the industry in a fiercely competitive global market.
They claim their production costs would soar and goods would become uncompetitive for global retailers.
Garment workers went on strike over wages for six days in September, hitting almost 20 per cent of the country's 3,200 factories.
The strikes followed similar protests over the summer.
The present dispute comes amid a nationwide political strike called by the country's main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies to demand a caretaker government to oversee elections.
Starvation wages and dodgy trade deals with Western countries have helped make Bangladesh the world's second-largest clothing exporter after China.
Three-fifths of its garments going to Europe and a quarter to the US. The sector employs about 4 million workers, mostly women.
Bangladesh's garment industry has come under intense scrutiny for its harsh and unsafe conditions after the collapse of an eight-storey factory which killed more than 1,100 people in April was followed by a string of other fatal accidents sparked by cost-cutting and neglect of safety.
