TRAINS were cancelled across Bangladesh today as railway workers went on strike for higher pensions and other benefits, affecting tens of thousands of passengers and freight transport.

Bangladesh Railway Running Staff and Workers Union acting president Saidur Rahman said the strike had been called after a meeting with the interim government headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus failed to reach a deal on Monday night.

Mr Rahman warned that the industrial action would continue indefinitely if the government rejects the union’s demands.

Dhaka-based Jamuna television station reported that railway workers had protested in Chattogram, the country’s second-largest city. 

The south-eastern city has Bangladesh’s largest seaport and the massive garment industry relies on trains to transport goods there for export. The industry earns the equivalent of around £31 billion a year from exports, mainly to the United States and European Union countries.

The state-run railway system carries some 65 million passengers a year in the densely populated nation of 170 million people. It employs about 25,000 staff and operates a network of over 22,000 miles.

In the capital Dhaka, the main station was mobbed by hundreds of disappointed passengers who were not aware of the strike. Many waited for hours before going home.

When government railway affairs adviser Fouzul Kabir Khan visited, passengers shouted complaints.

He told reporters that the nationwide walkout was “regrettable” and urged the strikers to return to work.

“Doors for discussion” are open to resolve the stand-off, Mr Khan added.

Shahadat Hossain, a station manager in Dhaka, said at least 10 trains were scheduled to leave the station this morning. 

The Yunus-led interim government has run the country since August, when a student-led uprising ended the 15-year rule of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India.