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New strike sees violence flare in Bangladesh

Bangladeshi policemen use their batons to hit a female activist of country's main opposition Awami League party during a day-long nationwide general strike in Dhaka yesterday. The league called the strike, the second in as many days, to protest against what it called ``government action'' on its leaders and workers during a stoppage on Thursday. PHOTO: AFP

Clashes erupted and transport and business was disrupted in Bangladesh yesterday after the main opposition party called a second strike in three days to protest at what it said was "barbaric" police action in the first strike.

The Awami League, the country's biggest opposition party, said in a statement nearly 100 of its members and supporters, including several senior leaders, were injured in the latest country-wide strike.

Witnesses said clashes erupted yesterday, a working day in Bangladesh, when baton-wielding police turned on stone-throwing protesters.

"The on-and-off-again battle is mostly concentrated around the Awami League central office at Gulistan, in the heart of the city," one witness said. Others said protesters had exploded some home-made bombs but no one was injured.

The strike was in protest against police action on Thursday, when the Awami League called a strike to mobilize support for its campaign to topple Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and force early elections, which are otherwise not due before October 2006.

Awami League general secretary Abdul Jalil said "hundreds of our party leaders, including a former minister, and supporters were wounded in barbaric police actions during Thursday's strike."

The former minister, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, and several others were still in hospital, party leaders said yesterday.

In the capital Dhaka, hundreds of opposition activists took to the streets under the watchful eyes of hundreds of police and paramilitary troops, witnesses said.

The strike had affected Chittagong port and major towns across the country, reporters said. Most shops remained closed and schools suspended examinations. The Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges also remained shut.

On Friday night, suspected opposition supporters set fire to a bus and damaged four other vehicles in Dhaka, police said. No one was injured.

Awami chief Sheikh Hasina said while visiting the wounded in hospitals on Friday that the government had pushed the country "into unprecedented lawlessness, making killings, lootings and abductions rampant."

She urged the people to push Prime Minister Khaleda's more than two-year-old government out and make way for early elections.

Khaleda's Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) is expected to hold a rally in the capital later yesterday.

Khaleda has rejected calls for early polls, saying the country is making satisfactory progress on the economic and social fronts.

"The Awami League has a history of doing bad things and trying to retard progress and disrupt peace," BNP secretary-general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan said on Friday.
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