DHAKA, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Bangladesh accused Kuwait on Wednesday of unjustly and cruelly deporting some of its expatriate workers after recent labour unrest in the oil rich Gulf kingdom.

Kuwait said at the weekend it had deported about 1,000 Bangladeshis following violent protests over pay and conditions.

'It is in our common interest that such incidents do not recur,' Bangladesh foreign minister Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury said in a letter to the Kuwaiti government.

'For the faults of a few, many are being mercilessly deported empty-handed,' he said, urging an investigation.

The letter was sent as scores of workers deported from the kingdom told Bangladeshi television that they were tortured in police custody.

Workers showed blood-stained shirts and injury marks on their bodies, and said they had not been paid the money promised by their Kuwaiti employers.

Hundreds of Bangladeshi workers held demonstrations in Kuwait last week to demand better pay and living conditions.

The protests, some of which turned violent, lasted several days, with riot police using batons to break up one rally.

Impoverished Bangladesh relies heavily on its expatriate workers, who in the past fiscal year sent back eight billion dollars, propping up the country's shaky balance of payments.

About 200,000 Bangladeshis work in Kuwait, mostly as cleaners and in other low-paid jobs.

Thousands have gone on strike in recent months, complaining that their wages were not paid and that they had to endure inhuman working conditions.

Kuwait has warned it will not tolerate violence, but said it was also determined to crack down on agents who recruit Asian labour and violate employment contracts once the workers are in the kingdom.