Cocktail panic continues late into the night: blasts at Cantonment station and in front of Khilkhet police station

The series of cocktail blasts in the capital did not stop even late at night. On Sunday night (8 November), a cocktail exploded on the platform of Cantonment Railway Station. The same night, two cocktails exploded in front of Khilkhet police station.

Joynal Abedin, officer-in-charge of Kamalapur Railway Police Station, confirmed the Cantonment station incident at around 12:20 am. He said miscreants set off a cocktail explosion on the platform of Cantonment Railway Station at around 10:10 pm.

No casualties were reported in this explosion. OC Joynal Abedin said it is being investigated who carried out the incident.

Earlier, at around 11 pm, two cocktails exploded with a loud bang in front of the gate of Khilkhet police station. The blasts took place in front of Khilkhet police station and the Radisson hotel. SI Sohel Ahmed, the duty officer of the police station, confirmed the incident.

With these two incidents, the chain of one cocktail blast after another in the capital continued through the evening and night. Earlier in the evening, cocktail blasts had taken place on the Dhaka University campus, in front of the CID headquarters in Malibagh, at Pallabi police station and in Mirpur.

It is not only cocktail blasts — on 6 and 7 November, miscreants set fire to six vehicles on Dhaka and inter-district routes. Transport owners and workers are living in fear amid the incidents of buses being set on fire and vandalised in the capital and elsewhere in the country.

The Dhaka Road Transport Owners Association on Sunday wrote to Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ali Hossain Fakir, urging urgent legal action against those involved in these incidents.

In the letter sent to Police Headquarters, it said miscreants were carrying out sabotage, including vandalising and torching vehicles plying in Dhaka and across the country. This has created panic among owners and workers.

A source in the Dhaka Road Transport Owners Association said that, following the organisation's application, police will sit in a meeting with leaders of transport owners' and workers' organisations at the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) office tomorrow, Monday.

Meanwhile, police see sabotage and an intent to create panic among the public behind the serial hand-bomb blasts and bus arson in various parts of the capital. The DMP said several people involved in these incidents have already been arrested.

Akhtar Hossain, deputy commissioner of the DMP's media and public relations division, said the group is carrying out these acts with the aim of sabotage and creating panic among the public. He said this on Sunday while answering a question from journalists at his office on Mintoo Road in the capital.

He said police are closely monitoring and investigating every incident. Several people linked to these incidents have already been arrested. Among those arrested are members of a banned organisation and of various affiliated organisations of a party.