DHAKA, 28 January 2005 — A former finance minister was among four people killed by a bomb blast yesterday at an opposition rally in northeastern Bangladesh, police and witnesses said.
The bomb exploded at a rally of the main opposition Awami League at Laskarpur, 250 km (150 miles) from the capital Dhaka. Around 50 other people were wounded.
A party spokesman said former Finance Minister Shah Abu Mohammad Shamsul Kibria, 70, was among the dead. Others who died in the blast included a nephew of Kibria and two party workers.
After the blast, protesting Awami workers and supporters went on a rampage, attacking and damaging dozens of vehicles and shops, witnesses said.
Authorities later deployed extra police and paramilitary troops at Laskarpur, which local reporters said looked like a “ghost town” after dark yesterday.
Kibria who had been sitting on the dais at the rally when the bomb went off, died in a Dhaka hospital around midnight.
Hospital doctors confirmed his death to reporters, and said another person taken to the hospital was fighting for his life.
“Kibria is dead,” the party spokesman said, without giving details.
In protest, the Awami League called for a nationwide general strike tomorrow following countrywide protests today.
Police were investigating whether the bomb had been planted before the rally or had been thrown.
The Awami League quickly blamed the government. “It (the blast) came in the wake of an unending conspiracy by the government to eliminate democratic forces, especially its opponents,” said Saber Hossain Chowdhury, political secretary to Awami leader Hasina Wajed, a former prime minister.
Hasina narrowly escaped injury in August when at least three grenades exploded at a rally she was addressing in Dhaka. Twenty-three people were killed and hundreds wounded.
In May, British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury was wounded in a bomb blast at the shrine of a Muslim saint. Three people were killed in the blast.
