DHAKA -- Nearly 50 people were injured in clashes on Sunday in two Bangladesh cities as a day-long strike called by the opposition caused widespread disruption to business and daily life, police and witnesses said.

They said around 20 activists of opposition Awami League were injured in a clash with police outside the party's headquarters in the capital Dhaka.

At least 30 others were hurt in fighting between activists of the Awami League and the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the coastal town of Barguna, local officials said.

The strike was peaceful throughout rest of the country, police said.

The strike halted most road transport, led to the suspension trade on the Dhaka and Chittagong Stock Exchanges and disrupted handling and delivery of cargo at the Chittagong Port, which handles 80 percent of Bangladesh's external trade.

The transport sector returned to work after the strike ended at 6 P.M. (1200 GMT), witnesses said.

The strike, called after a mob attack on Friday on a convoy of cars carrying opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, coincided with the anniversary celebrations of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which the opposition has blamed for the attack.

Awami leaders said police cordoned off the Dhaka party office and chased away activists gathering outside.

"Police also detained more than 200 of our party workers in Dhaka and elsewhere on Saturday night, trying to foil the strike," senior Awami leader and former foreign minister Abdus Samad Azad said by telephone.

Police also raided homes of several former ministers late on Saturday, Azad said but gave no details.

Authorities deployed over 5,000 police and kept paramilitary troops on standby in the capital Dhaka as the strike shut most transport, schools, businesses and many offices.

The Awami League Party called the strike to protest the Friday mob attack on the convoy of cars carrying former prime minister Hasina and some of her colleagues.

No one was injured in the attack, which Hasina's political secretary Saber Hossain Chowdhury said was pre-planned and carried out by activists of the BNP.

The BNP, headed by Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, dismissed the allegation, saying the strike was intended to disrupt the BNP's founding anniversary celebrations on Sunday.

"The strike is a sinister move to disrupt BNP's founding anniversary," party Secretary General Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan told Reuters.

Strikes over political disputes and charges of persecution of rivals by ruling parties have been a routine feature in impoverished Bangladesh.

Business leaders have said the country loses more than $60 million in lost production and export for each day of a strike, and have politicians to find an alternative means of protest.