DHAKA A general strike hit Bangladesh Wednesday after a day of fierce clashes between Muslim hardliners and police left at least six people dead and 100 injured, AFP said.

A huge police presence was enforced by paramilitary Bangladesh rifles in Dhaka and the southeastern port city of Chittagong, and most offices and schools were closed after the strike began at 6:00 a.m. (0000 GMT).

Some city buses services were still operating as were taxis and rickshaws.

In eastern Brahmanbaria, where the six were killed on Tuesday during a strike demanding the release of jailed Muslim leaders, the situation was tense but calm, a local reporter told AFP.

The clashes in Brahmanbaria took the death toll to nine since violence first erupted Saturday over a court verdict banning the use of Fatwas, or religious edicts, by Muslim clerics.

A four-party opposition alliance led by former prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) enforced Wednesday's one-day strike demanding the release of arrested leaders.

Two smaller right-wing Muslim groups have called for a second strike on Thursday on similar demands.

Those arrested include Shaikul Hadish Moulana Azizul Huq and Moulana Fazlul Huq Amini, the leader and general secretary of the IOJ -- one of the parties in the opposition alliance urging Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed to step down and call early elections, not scheduled until after July.

Amini was held for allegedly calling for the hanging of the two judges, including Bangladesh's first female High Court judge, who passed the anti-Fatwa ruling, police said.

The use of Fatwas, sometimes Draconian edicts issued by local village clerics based solely on their religious authority, is deeply controversial in Bangladesh.

Human rights group Amnesty International hailed January's High Court ruling banning Fatwas as a "landmark verdict", according to AFP.