DHAKA, June 16 (News Agencies) - Twenty-one people died Saturday after a massive explosion at the local offices of Bangladesh's ruling Awami League in the port city of Narayangangj during a meeting of party members, police and hospital officials told news agencies.
Nine people were killed instantly in the explosion. Five died on their way to hospital, six died while being treated at Dhaka Medical College Hospital in the Bangladesh capital, hospital officials said.
Three other people are in a critical condition, officials added.
The explosion took place at around 9.30 pm local time, police and witnesses said. Buildings in the vicinity were badly shaken by the blast, said witnesses.
The tin roof of the office was blown off by the force of the explosion, a spokesman at the Narayangangj police station said.
The private Ekushey Television (ETV) showed bodies badly burned or ripped apart by the explosion, the worst in a series of such incidents over the last two years.
Senior police officers and Awami League leaders have rushed to Narayanganj which is some 20 kilometers (14 miles) east of the capital, officials here said.
ETV, quoting witnesses, said "several hundred" were injured.
A photographer with the French news wire at the scene said the dead included four women and there was total chaos in the Narayanganj hospital.
Home Minister Mohammad Nasim and Industries Minister Tofael Ahmed were among the party leaders who toured the area, officials said.
Panic spread across the city as police cars and ambulance rushed to the scene. Many of the injured were being treated in the city and also in the capital Dhaka's military hospital and the main Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Police have cordoned off the area as thousands of residents crowded near the Awami League office.
Police in Chittagong also said a crude bomb was found Saturday near the meeting venue of the left-wing Udichi Cultural Group in the port city and was defused. Two similar bombs were found Friday from the same place and were defused.
The explosion on Saturday comes after a bomb attack at a Catholic church in eastern Gopalgnaj district earlier this month killed 10 worshippers and injured more than a dozen.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed condemned the attack in Gopalgnaj and said while visiting the church later that those responsible would be sent to the gallows.
At least 59 people have been killed and 300 others injured in ten major bomb explosions in Bangladesh since 1999, besides the blast in Narayanganj on Saturday.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but Home Minister Nasim has maintained that some Islamic extremists and communal forces may be behind the attacks.
