DHAKA: A general strike called by opposition parties on Sunday over election procedures disrupted transport and businesses across Bangladesh and sparked clashes with security forces. Opposition leaders said over 100 of their followers were injured in clashes with law enforcers, and around 150 others, including two former ministers, were detained. Most businesses in the capital Dhaka were shuttered at the beginning of the 36-hour stoppage and public transport was virtually at a standstill, though trains continued to run. Armed police and members of the elite Rapid Action Battalion fanned out in Dhaka and in the port city of Chittagong, guarding key government buildings. Clashes broke out between police and activists at nearly a dozen places including Dhaka and Chittagong. In coastal Bhola district, strike attacked several buses operating in defiance of the strike. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia said police broke up attempts to stage demonstrations and many of its leaders were rounded up and detained. “It seems like we are in a forbidden city,” BNP secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told party workers. Politics in impoverished Bangladesh has been dominated for decades by often violent rivalry between Khaleda Zia and current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Sheikh Hasina took office in early 2009 and general elections are due in 2013 as the government grapples with discontent over high prices, high unemployment and inadequate public services. The BNP called Sunday's strike, the second in a week, to denounce a government proposal to rescind constitutional provisions under which government is temporarily handed to a non-party administration before an election.
