Get Guardian on GoogleBangladesh police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse stone-throwing crowds blockading major roads in the capital Dhaka on Saturday in the latest protest demanding the prime minister’s resignation.
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The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies have staged a series of protests since last year demanding Sheikh Hasina step down and allow a caretaker government to oversee elections due next January.
Clashes erupted in several locations when police moved in to clear thousands of people who gathered in the morning to block traffic on key arterials around the city.
“Some officers were injured,” Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP. “We fired tear gas and rubber bullets.”
At least four protest sites around the city saw clashes between police and protesters, Hossain said, with 20 officers injured and 90 protesters arrested.
AFP journalists at one protest site in Dholaikhal, an old neighbourhood now a hub for automotive repair shops, witnessed protesters retaliate by throwing rocks at riot police and their vehicles.
Bacchu Mia, a police inspector at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, told AFP that six protesters had been admitted to the hospital with injuries.
Senior BNP leaders Goyeshwar Roy and Amanullah Aman had been taken into police custody but had not been formally arrested, Hossain said.
Transport links between the capital and other parts of the country were badly disrupted, with trucks and buses stuck in gridlock.
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