Clashes during nationwide strike in Bangladesh injure 50

[News_Editor]

Clashes during nationwide strike in Bangladesh injure 50

2011-07-10 22:54:09 GMT+7 (ICT)

DHAKA (BNO NEWS) -- A series of clashes between protesters and security forces during a nationwide strike in Bangladesh on Sunday left at least 50 people injured, including ten policemen, local media reported.

Bangladesh News 24 reported that violence had erupted in two towns outside of Dhaka during a 30-hour countrywide strike enforced by 12 political parties, most of them Islamist. The parties are protesting against the removal of "Absolute Faith and Trust in Allah" from the constitution and demanding that secularism be dropped from the constitution.

In the Kanchpur area of central Bangladesh, trouble erupted when strike supporters blocked the Dhaka-Chittagong highway at around 8.30 a.m. local time and anti-strike activists, mainly transport workers, chased them. Police fired rubber bullets and charged batons on the activists to control the situation.

Police also fired rubber bullets and tear gas canisters at protesters in Fatullah in the southern outskirts of Dhaka. Superintendent of police Sheikh Nazmul Alam told reporters that three people were arrested while ten policemen were injured and about 10 vehicles vandalized during the skirmishes.

Meanwhile, two of the 12 parties claimed that police arrested over 550 of their supporters around the country since the beginning of the strike at 6 a.m. local time. That number was not immediately confirmed by officials.

The strike comes two days after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its key ally Jamaat-e-Islami enforced a 48-hour countrywide general strike in protest against the abolition of a caretaker government.

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