The eternal curfew: When paying rent doesn’t buy freedom

Here's the absurdity: you pay rent for a flat in Bangladesh, but come midnight, you may or may not be allowed inside it. Most buildings shut their gates at midnight. After that, unless you claim an emergency, the guard has orders to bar you from entering or leaving. Arrive home at 12:30am, and you're no longer a tenant but an unwelcome guest loitering outside your own building. It is a Bangladeshi irony: you pay rent but live like a boarder in a hostel. Most rental buildings in the city, even in relatively posh neighbourhoods, close their gates at midnight.

What's striking is how normally this is treated. In middle-class neighbourhoods, tenancy is seen less as possession of a home and more as admission to a dormitory. Rent is supposed to buy the use of the premises for the tenancy period. Furthermore, the irony is cruel: in a city where commuting can take longer than the workday, your reward is sometimes a locked gate.

The midnight gate is just the most visible rule. Others are softer but no less intrusive: no rooftop access after dark, or guest restrictions based on gender. They are rarely written into leases. They are enforced through frowns, questions, and the quiet threat of being labelled "difficult."

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The Constitution of Bangladesh has a straightforward position. Article 36 guarantees that "subject to any reasonable restriction imposed by law in the public interest, every citizen shall have the right to move freely throughout Bangladesh…" The important part is the phrase "by law." A building committee's circular or a landlord's whim is not law. Reasonable restrictions must be grounded in legislation, not in the preferences of whoever holds the keys.

The Transfer of Property Act, 1882, still the basis of tenancy law, goes further. Tenancy is not charity. Section 108 says tenants paying rent are entitled to enjoy the property "without interruption." Locking the gate after hours is plainly an interruption. You cannot sell uninterrupted possession and then interrupt it nightly.

Moreover, if the aforementioned laws do not suffice, the Penal Code offers language that should make landlords nervous. Section 339 defines wrongful restraint as preventing someone from going in a direction to which they have the right. Section 340 defines wrongful confinement as wrongfully restraining someone so that they are unable to leave a location from which they have the right to leave. Refusing entry or exit, absent a genuine security emergency, begins to resemble just that.

To see why it matters, you must understand how Dhaka eats time. The city's road network covers just seven to eight percent of land, far below the 20 to 25 percent in planned megacities. Dhaka ranks among the most congested cities; a 20-minute trip can stretch to two hours.

For the middle class, the workday doesn't end at 5pm. Private-sector professionals routinely work 9-10 hours without overtime pay. Adding the commute makes it 12 hours away from home. By the time you have eaten or seen a friend, it is late.

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There is also a safety angle often ignored. A tenant forced to linger outside in the dark, waiting for a guard to wake up or a landlord to grant permission, is exposed to greater danger than if simply let inside. For women, night-shift doctors, nurses, delivery riders or transport workers, this is not indulgence—it is about safety and dignity. The "security" argument collapses: you do not protect tenants by leaving them stranded on the street.

I have seen relatives sprint out after dinner to catch the gate by 11:59pm, breathless as if catching the last train. I have heard of tenants skipping hospital visits to avoid arguing with the guard. I have also seen friendships fade because meeting after work risked a lockout. These small inconveniences add up. They corrode your autonomy—your home is not truly yours. They turn adults into boarders, citizens into subjects of control. It also reflects Bangladesh's discomfort with private life extending into late hours. To step outside after midnight without excuse is to invite suspicion.

None of this is to say that security concerns are irrelevant. Burglary is real, and residents want assurance. However, the solution is not a blanket curfew. Alternatives exist, and they are neither costly nor complex. Buildings can ensure 24/7 access with electronic locks or multiple keys issued to tenants. Guards can maintain entry logs without denying access. Noise can be addressed through quiet-hours rules, targeting real concerns without controlling movement. Above all, lease agreements should explicitly guarantee uninterrupted access.

Where negotiation fails, there are legal remedies. Tenants can invoke their rights under the Transfer of Property Act. Documented wrongful restraint—such as being locked out despite paying rent—may justify a general diary (GD) with the local police station. Legal aid groups, such as BLAST or Ain o Salish Kendra, can provide support. The essential point is that tenants need not accept midnight curfews as part of city life.

A rented flat is a home, not a dormitory with a curfew. Living in Dhaka already means sacrificing hours to traffic, patience to bureaucracy, and serenity to noise. To then be told your freedom to walk through your own gate expires at midnight is one indignity too many.

Parthib Mahmud is business analyst at Ontik Advisory.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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