Two Savar kids killed in blast

Two children were killed and another was injured in a powerful blast in Savar on the outskirts of the capital yesterday afternoon.

The ill-fated kids, Mohammad Hannan Hridoy, 11, and Shuvo Rahman, 13, were madrasa students; they hailed from Mustapara village in the upazila.

Salman, 8, of the same village suffered injuries to his left leg. He returned home after treatment at a local clinic, said police.

The explosion took place around 5:30pm at a place some 100 yards from Bomka, an army training ground, said Mohammad Russell Sheikh, senior assistant superintendent of police at Savar Model Police Station.

Locals said children play in the unfenced ground every afternoon. An army training session ended there around 4:00pm yesterday.

While playing there, Shuvo found a ball-shaped object and put it in his pocket, said Salman, the injured boy.

When they were returning home, Hridoy and Shuvo were walking hand in hand and Salman was a little ahead. All of a sudden, the object went off.

One of the kids died on the spot and the other on way to a local hospital.

Law enforcers recovered the bodies and sent those to Dhaka Medical College for autopsies.

The ASP said they were not sure if it was a grenade or a bomb. The cause of the explosion could be known after the autopsies.

Contacted last night, Major General Waker-Uz-Zaman, general officer commanding (GOC) of the Ninth Infantry Division in Savar, said there is a training ground in the area. A team from Savar Cantonment went there for training yesterday and exploded grenades.

But as per rules, a team of engineers scanned the whole area for explosives before and after the training session, he added. "It's very unlikely that our grenades caused any casualty there."

A notice was put up in the area, restricting civilians' access to the field, but the army was not aware how people entered there, said the GOC.

The army was probing the incident.

Mohammad Kamrul Hasan Mollah, upazila nirbahi officer of Savar, said he, on behalf of the Dhaka DC, gave Tk 20,000 each to the families of the deceased.

Police were preparing to file a case in this regard last night.