“At least 532 people have been arrested over the violence,” Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP.
“They include some BNP leaders,” he added, referring to the opposition Bangladesh National Party.
He said the detainees included the BNP’s third-most senior leader Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury and party spokesman Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed.
He added that a former national football captain turned senior BNP figure, Aminul Huq was also held.
Mia Golam Parwar, the general secretary of the country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, was also arrested, Hossain said.
He said at least three policemen had been killed during the unrest in the capital and about 1,000 injured, at least 60 of them critically.
BNP spokesman A.K.M Wahiduzzaman told AFP that nationwide, “several hundred BNP leaders and activists were arrested in the past few days”.