New clashes on final day of Bangladesh strike

DHAKA: Riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets during clashes with opposition supporters on the third day of a general strike in Bangladesh Tuesday as tensions rose ahead of a court ruling over a 2009 mutiny.

A senior officer was seriously injured in the capital Dhaka when protesters hurled a small explosive device at a group of riot police in one of a series of incidents reported across the country.

At least 16 people have been killed in political violence since Friday when the opposition began a push to force Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to quit and let an interim administration organise elections due in January.

After a series of mass rallies at the weekend, the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies then enforced a three-day general strike, which ends later Tuesday.

But the end of the shutdown is unlikely to herald an easing of tensions in a country with a long history of coups as a court in Dhaka is due to pronounce its verdict Wednesday against 823 soldiers accused of taking part in a mass mutiny soon after Hasina came to power.

BNP leader Khaleda Zia, who has twice served as premier, has long been regarded as close to the military as her husband was a former head of the army who became president in 1977 in the aftermath of a coup.

Zia, who has a notoriously toxic relationship with Hasina, has branded the current government "illegal" and says that Bangladeshi law requires a neutral government to be set up three months before elections.

Hasina has instead proposed an all-party interim government led by her to oversee the January polls, saying that previous caretaker governments have paved the way for a military takeover.

Bangladesh has been ruled alternately by Hasina and Zia since 1991, although a military-backed government ran the country between 2007 and 2008.