Updated on
Summary Schools, shops and offices were closed in Bangladesh on Sunday to protest against anti-Islam film.
Thousands of police patrolled the capital Dhaka and roads were quiet across the country on what is normally a business day in the Muslim-majority country of 153 million people.About 40 Islamic activists were briefly detained after they tried to barricade a main road and threw bricks at police, local Dhaka police chief Abul Kashem told AFP.In Chittagong, Bangladeshs second largest city and only port, protesters torched a bus and damaged a police van, police said, adding that three students had been arrested.Several Islamic parties that are allied with the main opposition party called the strike to protest over the Internet film about the Prophet Mohammed and caricatures of him printed by a French magazine.They also demonstrated against the secular governments scrapping of absolute faith in Allah as one of the four pillars of the constitution.Police said about 10,000 police and elite Rapid Action Battalion forces were deployed in Dhaka, including in the diplomatic area.On Saturday, hundreds of activists clashed with police as they rallied in defiance of a ban on protests in central Dhaka.Police fired tear gas on protesters who pelted officers with stones and torched several police vehicles. Local media said more than 50 people were injured.
