A day-long strike paralysed Bangladesh yesterday, more than 100 people were injured in clashes and police detained opposition activists.

A 14-party opposition alliance, led by the Awami League of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, called the strike to press demands for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner M.A. Aziz, whom they accuse of pro-government bias. They also want reform of the election commission to make it ?fully capable of holding a free and fair parliamentary election?, due in January 2007.

Authorities deployed hundreds of extra police and special forces in Dhaka and other cities to keep order after the opposition vowed to make the stoppage a ?new turning point? in their long campaign to oust Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia. Senior Awami League leader Tofayel Ahmed said the election commission had ?literally become a wing of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and hence unable to conduct a free and fair election.?

Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Moudud Ahmed accused the opposition of spreading unfounded charges. Strike-related violence swept the capital, Dhaka, and at least 10 other district towns on Sunday. Police used batons, teargas and even gunshots to quell the protesters. At least 10 people were wounded when police opened fire on an opposition rally in Jamalpur,

200 km northwest of Dhaka. Nearly 60 people were injured in clashes between strike supporters and opponents in Rangpur, another town 350 km north of the capital, police and witnesses said.

Witnesses said yesterday's clashes erupted when steel-helmeted riot police used batons to disperse opposition leaders and workers marching and chanting in support of the strike in Dhaka and in the industrial town of Tongi near the capital. Pickets burned vehicles in the northern town of Rajshahi and Magura in the southwest, reporters said by telephone. The port city of Chittagong was unaffected by the strike, a working day in mainly Muslim Bangladesh, because of a sensitive religious anniversary, opposition leaders said. But schools and businesses across the country , including the Dhaka Stock Exchange and most government and private offices, were either closed or staffed thinly. Much transport was at a standstill nationwide, witnesses said.

In Dhaka, at least 25 people were injured in clashes between Awami activists and police on Saturday evening. Newspapers said hundreds of activists had been picked up overnight by police trying to discourage strikers. Police declined to confirm the reports. Twenty people were injured in clashes in Dhaka and 15 in Tongi. Police said they acted after protesters attacked them with stones and bricks. ?It (police action) is autocratic, because holding rallies and marches is our democratic right?, said one opposition leader, Bimal Biswas.