Bangladeshi opposition party activists rallied today in protest at the killing of a senior party official and four other people in the latest bomb attack in the country.
Former finance minister and UN official Mr Shah Abu Mohammad Shamsul Kibria (73) was killed yesterday in the blast at a rally of the main opposition Awami League party in Laskarpur.
His opposition colleagues blamed the government for failing to stop a series of bomb attacks that have killed and wounded dozens of people over the past year.
"If the previous blasts were properly investigated and the offenders were punished, today's incident would not have occurred," Mr Tofayel Ahmed, a former commerce minister, told opposition supporters after the bombing.
"How many more deaths do we would have to encounter in this bloody game of politics," he said at the hospital in the capital, Dhaka, where Mr Kibria was taken and where he died of his wounds.
A fifth person died today of injuries sustained in the blast, which police said was caused by a bomb or a grenade. About 70 people were wounded.
The Awami League enforced a general strike in Hobigaj, Mr Kibria's home town, today and hundreds of activists marched through the streets, shouting slogans and calling for the arrest and punishment of his killers.
Awami League leader Ms Sheikh Hasina, a former prime minister, called for a countrywide strike on tomorrow. Ms Hasina narrowly escaped injury when grenades were thrown at a rally she was addressing in Dhaka in August.
She said Mr Kibria's death was an irreparable loss for the country and she asked her followers to step up a campaign to force the government from power, and to, as she put it, restore democracy.
Opposition activists claim the bomb attacks are part of a conspiracy by the government to eliminate its opponents. The government rejects the accusations.