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HARARE - Zimbabwe police said on Tuesday they were investigating the deaths of four people in political violence over the past week as President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party and the main opposition party traded accusations on the murder of their supporters.

State television reported that police had arrested 29 people in the past two days over the violence which has flared up between the two main political parties in the run up to presidential elections set for March 9-10.

The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Tuesday four of its supporters were murdered by ruling ZANU-PF militants in the past week -- three of them in the southern Masvingo province.

But the ruling party rejected the charge, claiming the three dead men found in Masvingo were ZANU-PF supporters murdered by MDC activists.

"I don't know about our people being involved in any murder. What I know is that the MDC killed three of our people last week," said ZANU-PF Masvingo province chairman Samuel Mumbengegwi.

A police spokesman said they were investigating the deaths.

"We are looking at these cases, and until we complete our investigations we are not apportioning any blame to any party," the spokesman said.

MDC Information Secretary Learnmore Jongwe said in a statement the three men -- named as Richard Chatunga, Amos Mapingure and Isaac Munikwa -- were murdered by "ZANU-PF thugs".

Jongwe said another man, Moffat Soko Chiwaura, 59, was allegedly abducted by ZANU-PF youths in December and was found dead on a farm in northeastern Zimbabwe last week.

The MDC has accused ZANU-PF of training a private militia under the guise of a national youth service to lead a violent campaign against the opposition in the run-up to the elections, in which President Robert Mugabe faces a tough challenge from MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

"We call upon Mugabe's regime to disband the ZANU-PF militia," Jongwe said.

The accusations come after at least 20 people were hurt in street battles between ZANU-PF and MDC supporters in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo on Sunday.

The MDC says nearly 100 of its supporters have been killed in political violence since February 2000 when militants led by veterans of the 1970s war against white rule began often violent seizures of white-owned farms with government backing. Nampa-Reuters

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