Thousands of garment workers in Bangladesh walked off the job in protest at low wages Monday, sparking clashes with security forces and damaging multiple factories in unrest that left at least two people dead, police said.

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Police said at least 10,000 workers left their shifts and staged protests in Gazipur, the country's largest industrial city, where a six-storey factory was torched, leading to one of the two fatalities.

Another 7,000 protested in the central towns of Ashulia and Hemayetpur, authorities said.

Ashulia garment union leader Mohammad Ibrahim disputed the police figures, saying there were more than 100,000 protesters.

The worst violence erupted on a highway north of the capital Dhaka to Mymensingh, where at least 4,000 workers clashed with police, blocked the road and set fire to a pick-up truck, officers told AFP.

"One garment worker was injured during the clashes, and he died as he was taken to a hospital," said Sarwar Alam, chief of the industrial police unit in Gazipur.

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"One worker of ABM Fashions died from suffocation after the fire spread to the first three floors," Gazipur fire service chief Abdullah Al Arefin told AFP.

"We rescued another worker alive," he added.

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