Bangladesh demonstration over women's rights turns violent

Dozens of people were injured and more than 100 arrested Monday as Bangladeshi police clashed with protesters during a strike by Islamic parties against a proposed law to give women equal property rights. Violence broke out in at least four places, with police firing tear gas to control crowds of mainly students of Islamic schools, or madrassas, who brought much of the nation to a standstill by blocking roads.
The parties, known as the Islamic Law Implementation Committee, called the strike to protest against the government's move to pass laws ensuring equal property and inheritance rights for women in the Muslim-majority country. At Fatikchhari, near the south-eastern port city of Chittagong, some 3,000 madrassa students attacked buses and burnt down a petrol station, local police chief Mohiuddin Selim told AFP. Some 1,000 protesters blocked the main Dhaka-Chittagong highway 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Dhaka for three hours and fought police with sticks when they tried to remove them, local police chief Badrul Alam said.