A lawmaker was injured and scores of activists arrested Sunday as Bangladesh's main opposition party called the country's first nationwide strike since general elections in December 2008, police said.
Police spokesman Walid Hossain said at least 12,000 policemen and the elite Rapid Action Battalion had been deployed in Dhaka to prevent violence as the shutdown brought much of the capital and the country to a standstill.
A Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) lawmaker was injured during a clash between pro- and anti-strike supporters at Dhaka University in the capital, Hossain said, adding that the man was rushed to hospital.
Bangla Vision, a private television channel, broadcast footage of police using batons on opposition activists. Witnesses said several people were injured in the attack.
Hossain said at least 131 opposition activists were arrested in a crackdown ahead of the strike. Many of them were picked up for torching and damaging vehicles on Saturday night.
However, "barring some minor clashes, the strike has been largely peaceful," he said.
Police said the strike halted transport throughout the country and disrupted business operations. In Dhaka, most private offices, schools and colleges were closed and Chittagong, the country's main port, was cut off, officials said.
The BNP called the strike to protest against what it says is the Awami League government's failure to provide basic services such as power, water and gas and against "arbitrary" arrests and harassment of its activists.
Several small parties, including the country's largest Islamic outfit, Jamaat-e-Islami, supported the strike.
The Awami League swept to power in January 2009 after a landslide election victory on December 29, 2008. The BNP, which ruled the country twice after democracy was restored in 1990, was reduced to a small opposition in the polls.
Copyright 2010 AFP South Asian Edition
