Dhaka  - More than 70 people were injured when thousands of militant Islamists threw stones at police and other forces as violence engulfed the area near central Dhaka's national mosque for a second day Friday, officials and witnesses said.

Riots broke out when police in armoured cars fired teargas to disperse rallies and chase protesters in downtown Dhaka.

About 120 protesters were injured in the clashes, prominent Islamic cleric Shaikul Hadith Allama Azizul Huq said claiming at least 25 people had been arrested over two days.

An assistant police commissioner and five other policemen were hospitalized after they were critically wounded in the violence.

The protesters, who are supporters of the committee for the prevention of anti-Koran laws in the country, accuse the interim government of trying to alter the inheritance rights of men and women by bringing about gender equality which is said to be contrary to Islamic injunctions.

The government has denied any such move in a proposed women development policy which had been recently circulated.

Nearly 5,000 extra police officers were deployed in the congested squatter colonies in southern Dhaka and several sensitive installations in the normally bustling metropolis, deputy district administrator Nahid Ahmad said.

The demonstration, banned under a state of emergency proclaimed last January, was called by the Islamic clerics who are opposed to any change in Muslim inheritance laws in Bangladesh which are considered by many development analysts as biased towards female inheritors.