Venezuela's authorities deployed hundreds of security forces into an opposition stronghold early Monday to stamp out protests in Caracas against the leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro.

The show of force came as the death toll from a month and a half of protests rose to 29 with the death Monday of a National Guard troop who was shot the day before during a protest in the city of Maracay.

Government forces moved into the area around the Plaza Altamira, a focal point of nightly clashes in eastern Caracas between masked protesters and security forces, and quickly established control.

The government described the operation as a "liberation" of the neighborhood, an area of middle and upper income residences and small businesses called Chacao.

At a hastily arranged meeting, Venezuela's Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres told the opposition mayor of Chacao he was "turning over the plaza as a territory of peace."

Several hundred National Guard troops patrolled the area and manned checkpoints, while workers cleared streets of barricades built by protesters from debris.

About 150 civilian "Guards of the People" were seen patrolling the neighborhood on motorcycles.

Maduro's government has been the target of daily protests in cities around the country since February 4, fueled by public anger over violent crime, inflation, shortages and further stoked by often heavy handed police tactics.