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The arrest of a local opposition leader from the old quarter of Dhaka further angered the stick-wielding partymen who set fire to at least one car, damaged half a dozen others and attacked the police with rocks. Fifty people were injured in the clashes in the city, police said.
Ten others were injured when ruling party supporters, armed with iron rods and sticks, attacked an opposition march in southern Barisal town, witnesses said.
The strike, the latest to hit the impoverished nation, shut down most transport, factories, schools and the countryÂ’s two stock exchanges in Dhaka and the port city of Chittagong. Police arrested 30 people on Wednesday for causing unrest during the strike called by the main opposition Awami League to try to force the government to accept electoral reform ahead of next JanuaryÂ’s parliamentary election.
The opposition demands included the removal of the election commissioner and an opposition say in the caretaker administration to be appointed to run the country ahead of the polls. “We are agitating to assert our democratic rights,” said Tofayel Ahmed, a former minister and senior Awami leader.