Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at hundreds of opposition activists in Bangladesh on Sunday as a nation-wide strike over the disappearance of a senior politician brought daily life to a halt. More than a dozen people were injured, four of them seriously, police said, as violence erupted in the north-eastern city of Sylhet, home to opposition leader Ilias Ali who has been missing for five days.
Rights groups have blamed security agencies for the disappearance of dozens of opposition activists over the past two years, alleging the victims have been abducted on government orders.
Police found Ali's car abandoned in an upmarket district of Dhaka on Tuesday night. His driver is also missing. Ali, a regional head of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), is the highest profile opposition politician to have "disappeared" since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took power in January 2009.
The BNP has accused the elite Rapid Action Battalion of abducting Ali, an allegation it has rejected. Police in Sylhet said clashes broke out after they were attacked by 800 opposition activists, forcing officers to retaliate with rubber bullets and tear gas. There was also unrest in the north-western city of Rajshahi, where police beat BNP activists with batons as they marched through the streets, television pictures showed.
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