The protest was reportedly linked to the workers not being paid by a Kuwaiti cleaning company they work for and the embassy's inaction to resolve the problem, but the embassy officials said they had not received any complaint about it.

"Around 150 workers armed with iron rods, hockey sticks, stones and brickbats attacked the embassy office at around 10:30am. They were part of around 800 Bangladeshi workers who arrived on the embassy premises in seven to eight buses," Nazrul Islam Khan, Bangladesh ambassador in Kuwait, told The Daily Star by phone last night.

The protestors pelted stones and brickbats to damage doors and windowpanes of the embassy office. "They also damaged furniture and tore up documents and passports of the Bangladeshi nationals submitted to the embassy for various reasons," Khan said.

The workers were employed in the Kuwaiti cleaning company Nibraj and living in Amgara area, a suburb of Kuwait City, some 45 kilometers off the embassy located in Surrah area of the capital.

A spokesman for the worker told the AFP that their employers had not paid them their wages for the last five months.

The BBC says the workers were able to get inside the building and damage its property.

The ambassador alleged that the attack was pre-planned and launched by an organsied group of the expatriate Bangladeshis. "The workers claimed they are not getting salaries for several months, but the embassy did not receive any complaint about it."

"We could have resolved the problems through negotiation had the workers filed complaints earlier," Khan said.

The workers might have been misguided by some "miscreants" who want to damage the image of the expatiate Bangladeshis living in the Middle East, he observed.

He said some Bangladeshis who came to the embassy office also tried to stop the workers but failed. Later, the embassy called in police who brought the situation under control.

The police also arrested several intruders and started interrogating them. None of the embassy officials or employees was hurt in the attack. But two Bangladeshis who came to the embassy received minor injuries during the melee, the embassy sources said.

State Minister for Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Mohammad Quamrul Islam told The Daily Star that he has ordered the Bangladesh ambassador in Kuwait to conduct an immediate inquiry into the incident and report the finds to the ministry.

The minister said his ministry did not receive any complaints of non-payment of salary of Bangladeshi workers in that company. He observed that the workers should have lodged complaints with the embassy before going for such subversive activities.

"I think some people are doing something against the interest of the country," he said.

Around three lakh Bangladeshis work in the oil-rich Middle Eastern country.

Kuwait's job market remained closed to Bangladeshi workers for several years until 2002. Over 40,000 Bangladeshis got employment there last year. Most of workers are manual labourers.