The strike came against the backdrop of the seizure of some 350 unlicensed rickshaws in a special drive since Wednesday. "The drive will continue," Ansaruddin Khan Pathan, deputy commissioner of DMP (Traffic, South), told The Daily Star.

As many as four lakh rickshaws now ply in Dhaka city, of which hardly 88,000 have licences from the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC). As rickshaws are blamed for the severe traffic congestion, the government is making some major roads off-limits to rickshaws.

Most of |he city roads usually congested with vehicles were free from traffic congestion in absence of rickshaws yesterday, the first day of Ramadan. Buses, minibuses and pick-ups ran overloaded on different routes of the city.

The striking rickshawpullers under the banner of Bangladesh Rickshaw-Van Malik-Sramik Sangram Parishad (an association of rickshaw-van owners and workers), have threatened to go for tougher agitation to press for their six-point demand.

The Parishad at an emergency meeting at its office gave a three-day ultimatum to meet their demands, threatening to enforce hartal and non-stop strikes in the capital if the government did not fulfil them by October 19.

The demands include stopping seizure of rickshaws until renewal of licence, creating alternative job opportunity for rickshawpullers, withdrawal of the restriction on plying rickshaws on ten city roads and providing the rickshawpullers with driving licences.

The Dhaka commuters were forced to walk to their destinations as almost all the three-wheelers were off the roads during the strike.

Schoolchildren, their parents and office-goers suffered the most as they found no rickshaws on the streets. Opportunist cab and autorickshaw drivers charged much higher than metered fare and declined to take passengers for a short trip.

"It's like a hartal day…I found no transport to take my children to school," said Firoza Begum walking with two heavy schoolbags of her son and daughter in Dhanmondi. "What can I do? I have to depend on rickshaws to take my kids to school."

Shamima Akhtar, an employee of a private firm, said, "I could not reach office in time as I had to walk two kilometres to the nearest bus stand from my Senpara house."

As the strike was hurriedly called on Friday evening, most of the commuters were unaware of it. Coming out of home yesterday morning they suddenly found there were no rickshaws.

"The rickshawpullers and rickshaw-van owners spontaneously joined the daylong strike," said Mahtabuddin Miah, general secretary of Dhaka City Corporation Rickshaw Owners Association. "We didn't force anybody to join it," he said.

The agitating rickshawpullers, however, stopped others who tried to drive their rickshaws, leading to clashes at several spots in the capital. About a hundred striking rickshawpullers damaged a couple of rickshaws on Biswa Road in Badda at about 7:00am.

The police picked up 25 people from Badda and Demra areas where the rickshawpullers engaged in clashes.

Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) yesterday sent a letter to the Dhaka City Corporation Rickshaw Owners Association inviting the association leaders to a meeting today to discuss the rickshawpullers' demands and related issues. The DCC also fixed October 24 as the last date for renewal of rickshaw licences for the city corporation area.