Dhaka, Mar 02: Police said today that they arrested 100 opposition members on rioting charges after small bombs exploded during an anti-government rally, injuring two police on patrol. The arrests were made in a raid late Monday on the headquarters of the country's main opposition party, the Awami League, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ashraful Huda said.

Two police were seriously wounded when several bombs were allegedly thrown from the party's office on crowded Bangabandhu Avenue earlier Monday, he said.

The bombs exploded as about a thousand demonstrators rallied in the area to protest an attack last week on a leading Bangladeshi author, Humayun Azad, which critically injured him in the head and back.

Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury said police recovered 14 homemade bombs - small tin pots filled with explosives - in Monday's raid.

Sheikh Hasina, head of the Awami League and a former prime minister, denied that her party was involved in the blasts. "It's the government's dirty ploy to get an excuse to crack down on us," she told reporters today. "We shall expose the ugly face of this authoritarian government."

Hasina's party has launched a campaign of general strikes and demonstrations to press for immediate general elections. It has accused Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's government of failing to curb rising crime and price hikes and of harassing political opponents.
Zia has rejected the allegations and vowed to remain in power until her five-year term ends in October 2006. Azad, a teacher at Dhaka University, has written about religious bigotry and violence against women in this Muslim-majority South Asian nation.

Unidentified men used meat cleavers to attack him as he was walking home Friday night on the university's campus. The author's condition remained critical Tuesday, doctors said. The Awami League said it will organize another nationwide general strike - the fifth in five weeks - on March 6 to step up its anti-government campaign.

Bureau Report