Police injure at least 50 in Bangladesh strikes

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Bangladeshi police beat demonstrators with batons Saturday during opposition-led strikes demanding the government resign over a deadly grenade attack on a political rally.

At least 50 people were injured in the clashes in southeastern Chittagong city and eastern Narsinghdi district, the domestic news agency United News of Bangladesh reported.

In Narsinghdi, 25 miles east of the capital Dhaka, baton-wielding police broke up a crowd of about 400 people who tried to hold a rally. About 30 people were injured, UNB said.

About 20 protesters were hurt in similar skirmishes in Chittagong city, 130 miles southeast of Dhaka, the report said.

Saturday’s strike is the third such protest called by the opposition Awami League, which blames the government for the Aug. 21 grenade attack that killed 20 people and injured more than 300 at a rally outside the opposition Awami League’s headquarters in central Dhaka. Opposition leader Sheikh Hasina escaped the assault unharmed, but she claims police allowed the assailants to flee – a charge the government denies.

Streets in Dhaka – a city of 10 million people – were empty of cars, trucks and buses during the dawn-to-dusk strike. Many commuters walked or used rickshaws. About 7,000 police and paramilitary troops patrolled Dhaka on Saturday, while extra security was deployed in more than 60 other cities and towns to monitor and control the strikers, a senior police official said on condition of anonymity.

A homemade bomb exploded in downtown Dhaka early Saturday, injuring a boy, witnesses said. No one took responsibility for the blast.

Strikes are a common opposition tactic in this impoverished South Asian nation to highlight demands and embarrass the government. Those who defy strike calls risk attacks by organizers.

The Awami League has staged a campaign of general strikes accusing Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s government of corruption, incompetence and failure to stop rising crime. Zia’s ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party denies the allegations.