DRDU General Secretary Belal Ahmed confirmed the matter, according to a report.
Referring to a recent incident of a driver setting his own motorcycle on fire in Badda, Belal Ahmed said, "This is very tragic that a driver had to torch his own motorcycle because of police harassment."
"We have previously informed the authorities about our problems several times, yet no action was taken to resolve the issues," he said.
The protesters' six-point demands include recognition of ridesharing workers and setting a 10% commission on all types of rides.
The workers demanded an end to all kinds of police harassment and asked the authorities to refrain from rendering drivers unemployed on fake charges or excuses.
The protesters also sought designated parking space for ride-sharing vehicles in Dhaka and Sylhet and no advance income tax (AIT) on all registered ride-sharing vehicles.
They demanded all ride-sharing vehicles that were AIT listed last year and were seized by police for non-payment of AIT should be returned to their owners.
Earlier, a driver of a ride-sharing platform has set his own motorcycle on fire to protest what he said police harassment.
The video of the incident that took place on the Badda Link Road area in the capital on Monday morning, when a ride-sharing driver set his motorcycle on fire, has gone viral on social media sites.
In the video, the driver was venting his anger when police stopped him and asked for vehicle documents for breaching traffic rules. The rider got agitated in a heated argument with the police and ended up setting his bike on fire.
Background
Ride-sharing arrived in Dhaka in 2016 with Uber and Pathao, and by 2021 the BRTA's Ride Sharing Service Guidelines required every vehicle to be enlisted and every driver to hold a professional licence, while traffic police treated motorcycles waiting for a booking as an obstruction. The Badda incident that triggered the strike, a driver setting fire to his own motorcycle after a police fine, spread on Facebook within hours.
What happened next
Updated September 2026. The strike went ahead on Tuesday, 28 September 2021, thinning app-based rides across Dhaka for a day, and the police promised to look into "harassment" without changing the rules. The core demands have been repeated at every protest since: recognition of drivers as workers, a cap on platform commission, designated waiting points, and an end to advance income tax on ride-sharing vehicles. None has been fully met. The platforms did lower commission on some ride types in 2022, and the BRTA opened enlistment to more vehicles, but the waiting-point problem that produced the Badda fire remains unsolved, and drivers still work without insurance or minimum earnings.
