Students burn Hasina effigy , battle police .
Anis Ahmed
DHAKA 1996-08-25
Students backed by opposition parties battled police and burned an effigy of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during a strike in the north Bangladeshi town of Bogra on Sunday .
The strikers barricaded streets , attacked the local office of the ruling Awami League , fought running battles with police and set alight hundreds of copies of the popular " Janakantha " newspaper , alleging it was pro-government .
Police used batons and teargas to try to disperse students who were throwing stones and home-made bombs , witnesses said .
The strike , called by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party ( BNP ) , to denounce the deaths of four students killed by police over the last few days , coincided with a visit to the area by Hasina .
Local officials said one policeman was killed by gunshots during clashes with pro-opposition students on Thursday .
Hasina told a cross section of people at the Bogra police headquarters on Sunday that the government had already suspended three police officers and ordered a judicial probe into the violent incidents .
The prime minister offered financial grants to the families of those killed , ordered the best possible medical care for the injured and urged Bogra residents to call off the strike .
Opposition legislators walked out of parliament in Dhaka on Sunday denouncing " unprecedented police barbarity " against opposition students and supporters .
They renewed their call for the resignation of Home ( Interior ) Minister Rafiqul Islam .
Hundreds of police raided the Dhaka university on Sunday , arresting nearly 30 outsiders who had been living in student dormitories and seizing weapons , university officials said .
Police stormed ten residence halls on the campus , flushed out people at gunpoint and searched their baggage .
They seized revolvers , sawn-off rifles , shotguns and knives .
The students were later allowed to return .
The swoop followed the resignation of the university 's Vice-Chancellor Dr. Emajuddin Ahmed on Saturday over the deteriorating law and order situation on the campus .
Authorities closed down the 28,000-student university on Wednedsay following gunbattles between students and police .
Police said they fought armed activists from the BNP , headed by former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia .
Hasina told police the home ministry had already given a " blanket order " to arrest terrorists and possessors of illegal firearms irrespective of their political identities .
Nearly 100 students have been injured in the clashes in Dhaka and Bogra , police told reporters .