Three people with small arms and bullets were arrested from the vicinity of Suhrawardy Udyan yesterday where Prime Minister Sheikh spoke on the day in an Awami League rally commemorating the homecoming of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
All three arrestees claimed to be Awamy League activists, and that their weapons were licensed.
The arrests were made after the proceedings of the rally had begun.
Sirajul Islam, Officer-in-Charge of Shahbagh police station said the arrestees have claimed the guns were licensed.
“We are investigating why they brought the arms at the rally of the prime minister,” he added.
To ensure security during the rally, Police, RAB, Armed Police, plain-cloth detectives and SSF members were deployed around the venue. Two gates were kept open for people to enter the venue and members of law enforcers searched their bodies, while another gate was for the AL men coming with processions. A fence was also installed around the rally stage.
Despite tight security, people with guns were arrested, and crude bombs were blasted in front of Bangla Academy and Shaheed Minar, places close to the rally venue.
Police, acting upon information, arrested Abu Sayem Shahin, 36, and Jasim Uddin, 33, while carrying a pistol and 38 rounds of bullets from Joykali Mandir area. Sayem claimed he was an activist of Mohammadpur unit AL, and also a car trader. Jasim was supposedly his assistant. The arrest was made between 3pm to 4 pm.
Around 4pm, police arrested one Anwar Hossain, 45, near the Bangla Academy premises with another pistol and 14 rounds of bullets. He claimed to be an ex-president of Mirpur unit Chhatra League.
Earlier on the day, miscreants hurled crude bombs at a truck carrying AL activists to the rally near the Shaheed Minar area. Five people injured in the incident have been admitted to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital following the attack around 4pm.
The injured are Hasan, Javed, Milon, Aslam and Abdul Latif, all of whom came from Dohar-Nababganj, said police.
Md Polash, organising secretary of Nababganj Upazila Swechchha Sebok League, told reporters that while they were passing the Shaheed Minar area, some miscreants hurled the bombs from a motorbike and fled.
“Five cocktails were hurled; all of the them hit the trucks body. If one of those fell on the truck’s bunk, it could have killed people” he said.
In another incident, three crude bombs were hurled on the road in front of the Bangla Academy around 2pm when the leaders and activists started coming to the rally ground, said Shibli Noman, an ACP of the Ramna zone.
Two of the three bombs exploded while police recovered another from the road. No one was wounded in the incident. Police suspect the bombs were hurled from the rooftop of an adjacent building.
Abdul Taben, Deputy Commissioner of police’s Ramna Division said, they had deployed police since Sunday night around the rally ground as had information that miscreants will try to do something ‘bad’ in the area.
