by Salim Mia
DHAKA, Aug 24 (AFP) - Over 50 people were arrested Tuesday in demonstrations in the Bangladeshi capital as a nationwide strike to protest a deadly attack on an opposition rally brought major centres to a halt, police and witnesses said.
Police and paramilitary forces patrolled the tense capital Dhaka during the first day of a two-day general strike called by the opposition Awami League.
Traffic was off the roads in most towns and cities while shops, schools and colleges were closed and some railway services suspended, officials told AFP.
Some 20 people died and hundreds were injured, some seriously, when unknown attackers lobbed grenades during the weekend Awami League rally in Dhaka.
Opposition officials said the attack was an attempt to assassinate Sheikh Hasina Wajed, a former prime minister and leader of the Awami League.
At least 50 people were arrested Tuesday when they resisted police trying to break up a protest, Dhaka Additional Police Commissioner Mizanur Rahman said.
A former opposition lawmaker and a Communist Party leader were also slightly injured in a scuffle with police in Dhaka, party officials said.
"Extra police have been drafted in from other districts to help prevent violence and we have deployed units at all key places in the city," Dhaka Superintendent of Police Bakhtiar Alam told AFP.
Many railway services across the country were suspended after activists dragged signal controllers from their posts and formed barricades on main inter-city train lines. "We have had to suspend most services," said Mostafa-e-Zamil, an official of Bangladesh Railways.
The southeastern port city of Chittagong was completely shut down and protestors blockaded the main Dhaka-Chittagong highway, police and witnesses said, adding protestors had smashed a number of vehicles and rickshaws.
There were no deliveries to the port, said Kamrul Hossain, second in command of operations, although work inside was going on as usual.
Police and paramilitary units were guarding key installations such as oil refineries, police said.
In northwestern Rajshahi, thousands marched in protest and most rickshaws, normally exempt from strikes, were off the roads, police said. "There are many demonstrations going on in the city but there has not been any violence," said Divisional Inspector General of Police Matiur Rahman.
Police in northeastern Sylhet added the city had closed down but there were no reports of any incidents.
The situation was similar in southwestern Khulna. "Shops are closed, buses and trucks are not moving and there are many sporadic processions but no violence yet," said Akbar Ali, Khulna Deputy Police Commissioner.
An armed forces spokesman said a senior female member of the Awami League wounded in Saturday's blasts died in hospital, bringing the death toll to 20.
A body was also recovered from a burnt-out train torched by a mob who rampaged Sunday in protest over the attack, the official news agency BSS said.
The car of Sheikh Hasina was fired on as she was rushed away from the attack site by aides and bodyguards, one of whom was killed.
Saturday's explosions follows a series of unexplained blasts in Sylhet this year. Earlier this month, two explosions within a week claimed one life each and in June another killed one person and injured about 50 others.
In May the British High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Anwar Choudhury, was wounded when a bomb exploded outside a mosque in Sylhet, killing three people. In January, four people died in a blast at a 700-year-old shrine.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Tuesday's strike, a common form of protest in Bangladesh, is the 15th called by the Awami League since February as part of its intensified campaign to oust the government, a four-party Islamist-allied coalition led by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
The opposition accused the government of failing to tackle crime and corruption. The government said it was working hard to tackle a grim situation inherited from the Awami League.