 owns across the resource-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island were deserted as people stayed home.
The Free Acheh Movement (GAM) called a two-day strike from Wednesday to protest at alleged brutality by police and troops and at Jakarta's plan to revive a separate military command for the province.
In Banda Acheh police raided two shops near the closed Syah Kula university campus, firing shots in the air, residents said. The police took away several men from the shops.
A loud explosion was heard around 7:00 am but the location could not be immediately ascertained. The Banda Acheh police spokesman said he had yet to receive a report on the incidents.
The mormally ubiquitous minibuses were absent from the streets for the second day. Military and police patrols were seen on the streets.
Soldiers have been given shoot-on-sight orders to foil any rebel attempts to block roads by felling trees.
Soldiers were out patrolling the streets in Banda Acheh and police were driving around in cars urging residents through loudspeakers to get down to business as usual. But despite their efforts, the city remained largely deserted.
The strike coincides with a two-day visit by Vice President Hamzah Haz to Acheh. He visited the southwest island of Simeuleu on Wednesday and was scheduled to make a trip to the southern district of Singkil Thursday to open a seminar on a former Achenese intellectual.
Jakarta last year granted Acheh greater self-rule and a larger share of oil and gas revenues. It also allowed the staunchly Muslim region to implement Islamic law.
In Jakarta, seven leading rights and democracy activisits urged President Megawati Sukarnoputri to firmly reject the plan to revive the military command in Acheh.
The revival of the command, disbanded in 1985 during the rule of former president Suharto, "points to the reality that there is one policy that is not changing, that is that the military is a factor of the old political powers which continue to be accommodated by all post-Suharto regimes," a joint statement signed by the seven said.
"Democratisation in Indonesia should dare to aim at reducing or eliminating all military institutions and influence in the civilian political sphere." Peace in Acheh, they said could only be pioneered through the implementation of justice and accountability.
But President Megawati Sukarnoputri, a daughter of the country's founding president Sukarno, has vowed it will never win independence.
More than 1,700 people died in 2001 in skirmishes between rebels and security troops, and 86 have already been killed this year.
© 2002 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved.
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