Bangladeshi police fought with their fists against rock-throwing women protesters and detained several in the capital on Saturday as the first opposition-led general strike of the year largely halted transport and business.
Witnesses said baton-weilding police chased hundreds of chanting activists of main opposition party, the Awami League, who hurled stones at the security men near the party's central office in Dhaka.
A fist-fight erupted when the women activists tried to break through a police barricade, witnesses said.
Police detained several but there was no report of injuries.
Few vehicles appeared on the streets and shops were generally closed. Apart from joggers and sweepers, most people stayed home.
The Awami League called for the day-long strike across the country to protest against alleged persecution of its leaders and members by the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party, a charge the BNP denies.
The Awamis have also said the strike would be the beginning of a campaign to push Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia's two-year-old government out of office and to force an early general election. No election is due until October 2006.
BNP secretary-general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan scoffed at the Awami plans as "too ambitious to achieve" and vowed to foil any attempt to create anarchy.
The strike halted deliveries from the country's main port, Chittagong, and trading on the Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges.
Trains and long-distance buses were moving with caution.
A thick fog - and a cold wave that has killed 50 people across Bangladesh in three to four days - have also hampered flights and the movement of ships and ferries.
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