A Bangladesh court Tuesday ordered the arrest of owners of a garment factory where 111 workers were killed last year in the country's worst such fire, after police laid charges.

The court in Dhaka issued the warrants for Delwar Hossain and his wife Mahmuda Akter and four others over the blaze that gutted the Tazreen factory where workers stitched clothes for Western retailers including Walmart.

Bangladesh's capital was cut off from the rest of the country Monday, with transport services into Dhaka halted to thwart the second day of a protest march against next week's elections.

With the opposition leader Khaleda Zia under de facto house arrest since last Wednesday, Britain's high commissioner became the first envoy to meet her, a day after police barred her from leaving the residence to address a rally.

Police barred Bangladesh's opposition leader from leaving home Sunday to lead a banned march in protest at an upcoming election, as two people died in battles between her supporters and security forces.

Police fired water cannon and shotguns during clashes throughout the capital with hundreds of demonstrators, some of whom threw home-made bombs.

Bangladesh police have rounded up hundreds of opposition supporters, authorities said Saturday, as the capital was virtually cut off from the rest of the country a day before a mass march aimed at derailing January 5 elections.

Over 750 people have been arrested over the past two days in a nationwide crackdown on opposition supporters, police officials told Agence France Presse.

Bangladesh's main opposition party said Thursday its leader Khaleda Zia was being kept under virtual house arrest after she called for a mass march aimed at scuppering a January 5 election.

"Since yesterday she has been under virtual house arrest," Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) vice-president Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury told Agence France Presse.

Bangladesh opposition leader Khaleda Zia on Tuesday called on citizens to stage a mass march to the capital Dhaka in an escalation of protests aimed at derailing controversial January elections.

Zia's call stokes tensions in the impoverished country, with over 100 people already killed in clashes since late October when the opposition launched the protests to force Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and make way for the polls to be held under a neutral caretaker government.

Four global retailers, along with manufacturers and labor groups, have agreed to set up a $40 million compensation fund for victims of Bangladesh's Rana Plaza disaster that killed 1,135 people, officials said Tuesday.

They said retailers Primark, El Corte Ingles, Loblaw and Bon Marche have pledged to contribute to the fund following the collapse of the garment factory complex in April, the world's worst industrial tragedy.

A hardline Bangladeshi religious group said Monday it called off a rally in Dhaka after police barred its leaders from leaving a madrassa fearing a rise in violence just weeks before elections.

Radical Islamic group Hefajat-e-Islam had planned a rally for Tuesday to push for a new blasphemy law and other demands, in a resumption of protests held earlier this year that left at least 39 people dead.

Bangladesh security forces have arrested 37 Chinese and Taiwanese nationals after raiding an illegal Internet telephone operation they were allegedly running in an upscale Dhaka neighborhood, an official said Monday.

Officers from the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) raided the apartment block late on Sunday and arrested the foreigners over the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) operation offering cheap international calls, RAB spokesman Habibur Rahman said.

Bangladesh police Sunday laid the first charges over the nation's deadliest-ever garment factory fire 13 months ago, accusing the owners and 11 others of an offense punishable by life imprisonment.

Police charged owners Delwar Hossain and his wife, along with security guards and managers, over the blaze that killed 111 people and gutted the Tazreen factory where workers stitched clothes for Western retailers.