Sylhet Mayor Badaruddin Ahmed Kamran narrowly escaped a car bomb explosion last night that injured at least 25 opposition activists, 47 hours after twin cinema blasts killed a street boy, sending shock waves across Bangladesh.
The blast turned the jeep in which the bomb was planted into a pile of blackened, twisted metal and partly damaged another jeep, five minutes after the mayor went past the porch of Gulshan Hotel, the scene ofthe blast.
"The car bomb might have killed me, had I not left the hotel in a hurry to join another programme," Badaruddin, also president of Sylhet city Awami League (AL) told reporters. "I'm sure I was the prime target of the attackers."
The mayor attended a workers' meeting of the AL in Gulshan Centre, a conference room of the
hotel in Taltala heart of the northeastern city, 15 metres off the scene.
His car was parked in the porch.
The explosion rocked the area 10 minutes after the meeting ended at 7:40pm.
The condition of seven of the injured, all participants of the meeting, was critical. Three of 22, admitted to MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital, were being operated upon when reports last came in.
"A few injured people were groaning in a pool of blood. The vehicle in which the bomb exploded was burning. A broken umbrella, a few pairs of shoes and sandals were strewn on the scene. It was a gory spectacle," a witness said immediately after the blast.
Police cordoned off the area after fire-fighters doused the blaze, he said, adding the law-enforcers picked up the driver of the partly damaged jeep for interrogation.
"We are looking for the owner of the vehicle in which, we believe, the bomb was planted," a top police officer said. "Well leave no stone unturned in the probe."
TWIN CINEMA BLASTS
A team of explosives experts of the army from Dhaka earlier on the day exploded the bomb retrieved from Abokash Cinema on Thursday night at the Police Firing Range nearLuckatoorah Golf Club.
A top police officer said the bomb, perhaps made locally, matched with the pair that exploded in as many cinemas on Thursday night, killing the street boy and injuring seven.
A team of officials from the Joint Interrogation Cell reached Sylhet on Friday night to interrogate people arrested in connection with the cinema blasts.
Meanwhile, local police began sifting through the evidence and suspects for clues to the crime. "We have started checking people, who came to Sylhet from other districts and took petty jobs like the helpers or drivers of auto-rickshaws, tempo or rickshaws in the city," the police officer said.
The suspicion about outsiders grew after last week's arrest in Sylhet of Thandu Miah, a leader of outlawed Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party, far away from his house in Harinakunda upazila injhenidah.
Thandu was wanted in a raft of criminal cases.
Police distributed a printed form among rickshaw, auto-rickshaws and tempo owners, requesting them for information on outsiders in local jobs.
The Joint Interrogation Cell interrogated the arrested people who are undergoing treatment at the MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital, but did not get vital information as most of them including prime suspect Mahfuzur Rahman Soleman was very sick.
Before the amputation of a leg on Friday night, Mahfzur allegedly gave misleading information about his whereabouts and permanent address, raising the suspicion of investigation officers.
At least seven witnesses said Mahfuzur was carrying the bomb that exploded in Monika cinema.
Meanwhile, police tightened security in and around all movie theatres in the city. The AL as part of its mourning day staged a rally at the city point in the afternoon, attended by the mayor among others.
The speakers blamed fundamentalist forces for the cinema blasts and demanded arrest and exemplary punishment to the killers.