About 10,000 riot police and paramilitary troops patrolled the streets of the capital Sunday and stores and schools were closed across the country during an anti-government strike called by the main opposition party. Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League party organized the strike to protest a recent deadly attack on an opposition rally, and to demand the government resign for early elections. The dawn-to-dusk strike also coincided with the anniversary of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's third year in office. Sunday is a working day in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. The nationwide protest disrupted public transportation in the capital Dhaka and more than 60 other cities and towns, police said. Nearly 10,000 law enforcers were deployed at major roads across the capital city of 10 million people to prevent any violence, said Khan Hasan Saeed, a senior officer of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police. Riot police erected barbed-wire barricades around the Awami League headquarters in central Dhaka, preventing several hundred opposition members from taking to the streets, witnesses said. However, nearly 1,500 anti-government demonstrators marched through the streets in other parts of the city. No violence was immediately reported. The streets in Dhaka were almost empty except for a few tricycle rickshaws that were allowed to operate by the strike organizers. Schools, shops and banks were shut down _ a usual scene during such political strikes in Bangladesh.
