More than 100 people were injured and a large number of opposition activists arrested as a nationwide dawn-to-dusk general strike enforced by the main opposition Awami League disrupted public life and business activities in Bangladesh yesterday.

Several crude bombs were set off in Dhaka yesterday and one left a rickshaw puller hospitalised, police said when the strike ended at 6:00 p.m.

Police prevented Awami League activists from staging anti-government processions in Dhaka during the strike. Senior leaders of the main opposition Awami League, including former ministers Motia Chowhdury and Mohammad Nasim, squatted on the street across from the party office after police tried to chase away activists. Police detained at least 30 opposition activists.

Riot police and paramilitary forces were on guard in the capital. Helmeted riot police wearing bullet-proof vests guarded the Awami League head office to prevent the party activists from organising any anti-government street agitation.

A heavy police contingent armed with teargas, water cannon and guns was posted around the Awami League office keeping the party activists and leaders confined there.

Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who was swept from power in an October election, called on Bangladeshis to support the strike, saying crime and corruption were endemic. "Despair and panic have gripped people from all walks of life, while there is no directive for the future," she said in a statement.

BNP secretary general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan countered that "the government cannot be toppled through anarchic politics."

"We have formed a government as the people of the country gave us the mandate in the last parliamentary elections," said Bhuiyan, also the local government minister.

Schools, private offices and banks were closed, although there was some public transport running in the capital. Most factories reported staff shortages as workers stayed away.

Banka transactions were slow, while attendance at the government offices was comparatively thin. Air, train and motor launch services, however, remained uninterrupted although pro-strike activists detained a train for several hours in the northern Jamalpur district, officials said.

In the capital, dozens of people were injured when police used baton and teargas to disperse an opposition gathering during the strike, as police forcibly prevented the party activists from carrying out a hunger strike on March 24 in a Dhaka park.

That strike had been called after parliament scrapped a law requiring that portraits of Bangladesh's founder, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, be displayed in all public offices and institutions.

A report from Gopalganj, the hometown of opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, said 10 people, including three policemen, were injured in a clash between the activists and the police. The protesters damaged a police van.

Earlier on Friday evening, police used batons and teargas to disperse Awami League activists who attempted to bring out a torch procession to drum up public support for the strike. At least 30 people were injured.

Police also detained several hundred AL activists in Dhaka and elsewhere ahead of the strike. In their pre-strike actions, they also raided the homes of former Awami League minister, Amir Hossain, and senior leader, Sahara Khatun.