Bangladeshi police fired teargas at scores of protesters yesterday as violence broke out during a day-long opposition strike in the capital Dhaka. The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its Islamist allies enforced the strike in protest at the government’s decision to divide the 400-year-old city into two administrative zones. “Protesters became unruly as they pelted bricks and stones at police and torched a police van and motorcycle. We fired teargas to prevent vandalism,” deputy commissioner of Dhaka police Khorshed Alam told AFP. The mayor, a senior BNP official who will lose his job in changes to how the city is run, was hauled into a police van at the protest but later released. Schools and businesses were closed and roads largely deserted as the strike took effect. Several BNP activists were hurt in scuffles with police at a dawn rally. A party official said eight people were injured.Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, a senior opposition party official, said at least eight demonstrators were injured in the dispersal, which took place in front of the party’s headquarters.He said at least 85 opposition supporters were arrested on Saturday, the eve of the strike.“The government has unleashed a reign of terror to frighten opposition activists,” Alamgir told reporters yesterday. “Police are out to halt our peaceful protests.”The government recently ratified a new law splitting Dhaka into two administrative zones, which it said would improve services and utilities for the city’s 15mn people. The opposition criticised the move, saying it was politically motivated as the new system forced the city’s elected mayor out of office. Police spokesmen said at least 13,000 law-enforcers including about 3,500 members of the elite Rapid Action Battalion were patrolling the roads and flashpoints in the city. Opposition and government supporters clashed briefly in a separate incident yesterday in which several people were hurt, said APTN cameraman Al Emrun Gorjon, who suffered a head injury.He said the clash broke out after opposition demonstrators hurled stones at a passing bus. Nearby government supporters then clashed with the demonstrators before police arrived, he said. AFP