Witnesses said about 50 people were injured in the latest street violence in the city triggered by protests over Nasreen's reported return to Bangladesh last month after a four-year exile.

About 1,000 clerics and Islamic radical youths, chanting ``death to the enemies of Islam'', gathered at the city's biggest Baitul Mukarram mosque before marching on to a government complex which houses the home ministry.

At least 15 people were detained during the clashes, witnesses said. Police deployments were heavy in the city centre as tension mounted in the area over the planned street march organised by the Islamic United Council, a group of militant clerics demanding Nasreen's arrest.

``Taslima Nasreen must be tried under the Islamic shariah laws which provide for death sentence forMurtads (atheists),'' said Shaikul Hadith Azizul Huq, the council chief. Clerics warned the secular government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina against sheltering Nasreen.

Huq said there was no place for Nasreen in Bangladesh where more than 85 per cent of the 120 million natives were Muslims.

The latest demonstrations followed Nasreen's appeal to western countries to save her life from fanatic Muslims in Bangladesh.

Witnesses said police used teargas shells and swung batons to disperse the stone-throwing protestors. Many roads downtown were blocked by police.

Nasreen allegedly went into hiding soon after reaching the metropolis from New York to see her critically ill mother. She reportedly wanted to remain in the country if the government provided her adequate security.

A Muslim cleric went to a magistrate court here to get an arrest warrant issued against Nasreen for anti-Islamic writings after local newspapers reported her presence in the capital. The authorities would not confirm or deny thereports and a senior police officer said he had no information on her whereabouts.

Nasreen was forced to flee Bangladesh on August 9, 1994 after the Muslim clerics issued a fatwa (edict) condemning her to death for allegedly conspiring against Islam. Clerics accuse her of seeking reforms in the Koran, Islam's holiest book considered unchangeable by Muslims.