Three people were killed and a former finance minister was critically injured Thursday in a blast at a main opposition party rally in north-eastern Bangladesh, officials said. "Either a bomb or a grenade was thrown as the rally ended. It killed three people and wounded at least 15," A.K. Mahfuzul Haq, deputy inspector general of police for the north-eastern Sylhet region, told AFP.
Opposition lawmaker and former minister Shah A.M.S. Kibiria was seriously injured in the blast, Haq said, adding he had been taken by ambulance to Dhaka for treatment. The explosion happened at an early evening rally at Boidder Bazar in Habiganj district.
The three victims were all Awami League activists, one of whom was also Kibiria's nephew, Haq said.
No arrests had yet been made and the condition of the rest of the injured was not known, he added.
Last August, more than 20 people died after a deadly grenade attack on an Awami League rally in the capital Dhaka.
Party officials said the attack was an assassination attempt on Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed, a former prime minister of the country.
In another attack last year, opposition MP Ahsanullah Master was gunned down at a party rally near Dhaka sparking violent rioting.