Awaz Apni

Security forces in Bangladesh arrested more than 200 people Sunday as the first nationwide general strike since elections in 2008 was marred by violence, police said. In the capital Dhaka, security forces fired tear gas and used batons to disperse hundreds of opposition activists as they tried to hold marches along major roads, police said. An opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) lawmaker was hurt when supporters and opponents of the strike clashed at Dhaka University, police spokesman Walid Hossain said, adding the man was rushed to hospital and later arrested. At least 12,000 policemen and the elite Rapid Action B...

Awaz Apni DHAKA : Bangladesh went to the polls under tight security Monday in the first elections here since 2001, with a pair of former leaders and bitter rivals vying to reclaim power in the impoverished nation. The vote will restore democracy to the south Asian country after two years of caretaker rule by an army-backed interim government, installed after a wave of political violence prevented the last scheduled elections. Thousands queued at polling stations in thick early morning fog, with hundreds of thousands of police and soldiers deployed to avert clashes between rival supporters and feared attacks by Islamic extremists. Despite attempts by the caretaker regime to shake up a political system long seen as deeply corrupt, the two leading candidates are fierce rivals who have ruled alternately since 1991. Sheikh Hasina Wajed of the Awami League and Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) both wooed voters with last-minute promises of lower food prices, action agains...