DHAKA, Sept, 27, Reuter: A bomb exploded at a Bangladesh Opposition Political rally today seriously wounding at least ten people, police said.
They said the homemade bomb might have been thrown by Political rivals of the eight party alliances, which organized the tally to call for a united opposition ‘campaign to oust President Hussain Mohammad Ershad.
Doctors at the Dhaka Medical College said five of the wounded were in critical condition,
Alliance leader Sheikh Has in a Wajed said she suspected the bomb was thrown with the encouragement of the government by followers of retired Colonel Syed Faruk Rahman, a candidate in next month’s presidential election.
Faruk was the mastermind of a military coup in 1975 in which Hasina’s father, Bangladesh’s first President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was killed,
“The bombing is the work of dictators who have found a common cause with known killers,” Sheikh Hasina’s told the rally after the explosion.
She said Ershad was trying to rehabilitate Faruk as a politician, ignoring her demands that he be put on trial for killing her father.
“The irony is that a man who should be hanged is now being promoted as a presidential candidate”, she said.
Her alliance and a seven party grouping heading by Begum Khaleda Zia plan to boycott the October 15 election because they say Ershad will rig it to ensure that he wins,
“The entire electoral exercise is designed to perpetuate the authority of General Ershad through a fraudulent poll. It must be resisted come what May,” the eight party alliances said.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 3, 1986
