Soldiers shot at anti-government demonstrators in central Bucharest tonight after the protesters occupied state-run television and stormed and burned police headquarters, witnesses said. One witness reported seeing at least two bodies after the shooting, but this could not be immediately confirmed. The most serious violence in the Romanian capital since December's revolution that toppled the Ceausescu regime was caused by a pre-dawn police raid that ended a 53-day anti-Communist protest in University Square. Demonstrators clashed with police during the afternoon in the square, then fanned out to police headquarters, secret police headquarters, the TV station and Victory Square, headquarters of the governing National Salvation Front. The shooting occurred outside the secret police headquarters, where the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's hated Securitate force operated. Before the buildings were attacked, President-elect Ion Iliescu issued a communique calling on all ``aware and responsible people'' to surround government buildings and state TV to ward off ``extremist groups'' and to save Romania's democracy ``earned with so much difficulty.'' Scottish free-lance photographer Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert said he saw soldiers shooting from inside the Securitate building in downtown Bucharest. He said he saw the body of a man in his 40s who had been shot in the head. He said other photographers had seen at least one more body near the building, which was ringed by half a dozen armored personnel carriers. State-run television, scene of fierce fighting during December's revolution, was stormed by the protesters who occupied one of the main studios. An announcer said they might not be able to transmit any longer. Minutes later, the picture was cut and shortly afterward the sound was also cut. Demonstrators carrying gasoline cans got into headquarters of the regular police this evening and set fire to cars and trucks nearby. About 1,500 people stood outside, watching the right wing of the building burn. Some civilians working in the headquarters leaned out the windows, looking panicked and coughing. Every few minutes, there were minor explosions, apparently from gasoline in the vehicles set ablaze. People who thronged the streets booed as helicopters flew overhead surveying the situation. The demonstrators say Communists still dominate the National Salvation Front, which has been in power since the December revolution and which won last month's free elections by a landslide. The government said more than 260 people were detained when steel-helmeted police moved in before dawn to break up the sit-in in University Square that had blocked the capital's main thoroughfare for 53 days. Witnesses said the police clubbed several protesters. Casualty figures were not immediately available, but officials said one policeman was injured in the clash with an estimated 1,000 people supporting the demonstrators. About 20 hunger strikers were among those camped in a small tent city in University Square. Police took the fasting demonstrators, some of whom had gone without food for a month, to the hospital. The protesters supporting the hunger strikers freed two people detained in a police van then overturned the vehicle and set it on fire, witnesses said. Several buses and trucks were also reported on fire. The attack on the police headquarters occurred several hours later. A government communique issued soon after the square was cleared said 263 people were detained for investigation. It accused protesters of attempting to resist the police with violence and said some arms were confiscated. Brindusa Muresan, who had been on a hunger striker since May 9, said some of her colleagues were clubbed by police in the lobby of the nearby Intercontinental Hotel. She said they were taken to a police station, fingerprinted and photographed and sent to the hospital for tests. Protesters, their ranks sometimes swelling to as many as 10,000 by day, had blocked traffic in the central square since April 22, dubbing the area a ``Communist-free zone.'' The protesters have pressed for a 10-year ban on former Communists officials _ such as Iliescu _ holding office. The demonstrators also demanded independent and private broadcast media. Government officials who met with the hunger strikers for the first time on Monday pledged their support for establishing such stations.
