Epress.am News from Armenia
Normal life has ground to a halt in Dhaka following a general strike called by Bangladesh’s main opposition party against the government’s alleged failure to run the country effectively, Al Jazeera English reports.
Thousands of riot police were patrolling the streets of the capital and schools and businesses were shut on Monday.
The strike called by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has also disrupted transport services.
The BNP, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, accuses the government of failing to regulate the country’s capital market, which recently suffered a sharp fall, fuelling violence.
But the government of Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, denies the allegations, saying the BNP is trying to destabilise the country.
Monday’s strike was the third that the BNP has called since it suffered defeat in the December 2008 elections.
BNP officials and supporters held small protest marches across Dhaka, chanting slogans against the government.
The party’s head office was cordoned off by scores of riot police, who had a water cannon ready to break up protests.
Bangladesh police said that at least eight buses were set on fire on Sunday night, just hours before the strike was enforced.
A homemade bomb reportedly exploded on the campus of a Dhaka university, injuring two people.
Five people, including a low-ranking BNP official, were arrested in Dhaka over Sunday night’s violence, Masud Ahmed, a Dhaka police spokesman, told the AFP news agency.
Dhaka police blamed the opposition for Sunday’s violence.