Dhaka , Bangladesh ( CNN ) -- Thousands of anti-riot police were in the streets of Bangladesh 's capital city Thursday as the opposition alliance launched a day-long general strike in protest of a fuel price hike . The strike , occurring all over the country , paralyzed daily life as road communications were heavily disrupted and schools and business establishments remained closed on Thursday , the last working day of the week . The usually busy streets of the capital , Dhaka , looked almost deserted as most means of public and private transportation remained off the roads . The opposition group Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies , mostly Islamic parties , called the strike after the government raised the price of petroleum fuels and compressed national gas on Sunday . Dhaka 's police chief , Benazir Ahmed , said his department deployed 13,000 policemen alone in the capital to break up any opposition protests , and the home ministry also initiated mobile courts to try protesters summarily on the streets . Police said that the strike was mostly peaceful apart from a few incidents of violence , but the opposition parties said the police and the ruling party men beat up their activists wherever they had tried to bring out a procession . Police said they had arrested some 200 people from different parts of the country , but the opposition claimed that the number was at least 400 . The BNP acting secretary general , Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir , said , `` The government has increased fuel prices at a time when people 's suffering has already peaked due to high inflation . '' But the government said it was an `` issueless '' strike . The general secretary of the ruling Awami League , Syed Ashraful Islam , said it was illogical as the prices of fuel oils were still lower in Bangladesh ( a liter of gasoline costs US $ 1.06 ) than in the international market . `` If the prices of fuel oils increase in the global market in the future , the government will increase the prices again because the government will need to pay huge subsidies otherwise , '' he added . The fuel price hike , the second such rise in four months , triggered protests also by transport owners .
Dhaka police put 13,000 officers in the streets in that one city , police chief says . The usually busy streets of Dhaka looked almost empty of people , vehicles . The opposition alliance launched the day - long general strike to protest an increase in food prices . The government claims at least 400 protesters were arrested .