More than 100 Bangladeshis have died, and many more have been horribly injured, in roadside bombings. By blocking highways, often violently, the protesters targeted the weakest link in the supply chain. The government has responded with increasingly harsh measures, and many of Mrs. Zia’s party leaders either have been arrested or are in hiding. B.N.P. officials deny responsibility for the violence but say they had no option besides blockades and strikes.

“I saw the agonies of the burned people, their maimed bodies, the smell of burning flesh,” acknowledged Mahbubur Rahman, a retired army general and member of the B.N.P.’s national standing committee. “But what we say is that the government is not allowing us to talk. Not allowing us to assemble. Not allowing us to protest, to make our news. In this situation, where the democratic rights are denied, what else can we do?”

The campaign hurt the entire country: students whose schools shut down before examinations; farmers who watched their crops rot; tourist resorts reporting near-total vacancy. But no sector matters as much as the garment industry, which accounts for 80 percent of Bangladesh’s exports and faces stiff competition from factories in Cambodia and Vietnam.

Shabbir Mahmood, who has two plants that employ 820 workers, felt the damage immediately.

Of the four companies that regularly give him orders, two canceled their January buying visits out of security concerns. Orders for February and March fell to half the plants’ capacity, leaving him no choice but to furlough workers. This made it all the more vital to guarantee prompt deliveries for his remaining buyers.

Yet he did not have the heart to order terrified drivers to haul goods to the nearest port in Chittagong, a 160-mile journey that takes six hours under normal circumstances.

“They came to me and said, ‘Sir, how will we drive? How will we go across the road if they try throwing bombs?’ ” Mr. Mahmood said, and he shrugged. “I can give them money, but I cannot give them their lives back.” In the end, he paid out of pocket to send two or three shipments by air.

Mr. Mahmood has delayed the planned fall opening of a third factory, this one to employ 2,000 workers; if the strikes continue, he will delay again. Though manufacturers have lobbied both Mrs. Zia and Mrs. Hasina to pursue a negotiated settlement for the sake of the economy, he said, they have had no success.