Bangladesh strike ends peacefully

By Roland Buerk
BBC News, Dhaka

The strike was called by the opposition

A one-day general strike organised in response to the multiple bomb blasts that rocked Bangladesh on Wednesday has passed off without incident.

It was called by the main opposition party, the Awami League, following the explosions which killed two people and injured more than 100.

The Awami League blames the government for failing to prevent the attacks.

It has claimed Islamic parties in the ruling coalition may be sheltering the culprits, which the government denied.

Supporters of the opposition marched in Dhaka and other cities.

More than 8,000 police officers were on the streets of the capital to maintain law and order during the strike, but there was little of the violence that has accompanied previous stoppages.

Bomb site leaflets

The Awami League blames the alliance government, led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, for not preventing Wednesday's bombings.

Some 400 devices went off almost simultaneously across the country.

A 10-year-old boy and a rickshaw puller were killed and more than 100 others were injured.

Leaflets bearing the name of a banned Islamic organisation, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, were found at every bomb site.

They called for the establishment of Islamic law in Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, the police are interrogating more than 120 people detained since the attacks.

Several of the suspects are alleged to be members of Islamic groups linked to Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.

The incident has caused some people here to doubt the government's long standing insistence that it has religious extremists under control.