DHAKA, 22 May 2005 — Police swung into action in Dhaka yesterday as hundreds of opposition activists took to the streets to enforce a general strike to protest the killing of an Awami League leader.

The opposition Awami League called a daylong nationwide strike to protest the killing of its leader Khorshed Alam, a lawyer, who was gunned down by unidentified assailants here Tuesday.

The strike shut down schools, colleges, shops and disrupted business and public transportation in more than 60 cities and towns.

In Dhaka, shops, businesses and schools were closed yesterday and private vehicles were off the roads. There were similar scenes in the southeastern port city of Chittagong and in Sylhet in the northeast, police said.

Saturday is a normal working day in Bangladesh.

Dhaka police chief Mizanur Rahman said 9,000 police and paramilitary personnel had been deployed in the city to prevent any violence.

“Thirty opposition protesters, 24 of them women, were arrested after they pushed their way through a police barricade during a demonstration,” said Sub-Inspector Aslan Hossen.

A Dhaka-wide strike was also held Wednesday to protest the killing.

Yesterday’s strike is the latest called by the Awami League to highlight a series of attacks on lawmakers and party members.

The attacks include a grenade assault on a party rally last August that killed more than 20 party activists and which has been described by Washington as an assassination attempt on party leader and former Prime Minister Hasina Wajed.

In January, five members of the Awami League, including lawmaker and ex-Finance Minister Shah A.M.S. Kibria, died in another grenade attack at a rally.

Last May, Awami league lawmaker Ahsanullah Master was gunned down at a political meeting.

Police said earlier they were investigating whether internal party bickering could have been the motive for Tuesday’s killing.

A total of 11 nationwide strikes and one Dhaka-wide strike have been held this year while last year saw more than 20 opposition-sponsored stoppages, despite pleas from donors and the business community.

The United Nations Development Program said last year that strikes cost the impoverished country’s economy between $1.6 billion and 2.2 billion each year.

The UNDP urged all Bangladesh’s political parties to replace the shutdowns with peaceful protests that do not deter foreign investment.