Dhaka, Mar 8: Two homemade bombs exploded in Dhaka's Shahbagh Square, the epicentre of anti-Jamaat protest, in Bangladesh on Friday, leaving a senior security official injured.
Witnesses said that the bombs were hurled by unidentified miscreants from the 4th floor of an adjacent hospital building.
“The bombs were hurled from the canteen located on fourth floor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) around 4.30 p.m.,” officer-in-charge of Shahbagh police station Sirajul Islam told PTI.
He said a massive manhunt was launched immediately for the culprits.
While witnesses say the rally continued despite initial tension as angry youngsters rushed inside the hospital complex with bamboo sticks in search of the suspects.
Police said one person was detained in connection with the blast.
The Daily Star newspaper, meanwhile, identified the injured RAB official as 55-year-old Jalal Uddin, the deputy assistant director of the elite force.
The incident occurred when the protesters were holding a Nari Jagoron Samabesh (rally for awakening women) at Shahbagh.
The Shahbagh movement began on February 5, hours after Jamaat assistant secretary general Abdul Quader Mollah was sentenced to life in prison for rape, killing and genocide during country's liberation War in 1971.
Hundreds of youngsters are staging a street vigil at the Shahbagh Square demanding death penalty of 1971 war criminals and ban on fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami.
According to media reports, over 80 people were killed in the past eight days as Jamaat members clashed with police and rival groups since their vice president Delwar Hossain Sayedee was handed down death penalty for the 1971 war crimes.
Mr. Sayedee was the third Jamaat politician to be convicted by the International Crimes Tribunal since the trial of war crimes suspects, mostly belonging to the Islamist group, began three years ago.
In the first verdict of the tribunal on January 21, former Jamaat leader Abul Kalam Azad was sentenced to death on similar charges.
