Security personnel at the spot suspected the three 'suspicious' containers were left at the site to create panic in the diplomatic enclave of the city, guarded heavily round the clock by over 100 armed police and plainclothesmen.

A gardener from the adjacent nursery alerted the on-duty policemen at the Chinese Consular nearby about the suspicious containers.

Immediately after the bomb alert was raised at around 8:00am, nearly 70 students of the "L'Ecole Francaise de Dacca" (Dhaka French School) across the narrow road hurriedly evacuated the building, leaving behind their books and stationery.

The school was also declared closed, well ahead of the scheduled Eid-ul-Azha vacation. Children were asked to collect their belongings on Saturday.

On the eastern side of the school near the walled plot of the Thai Embassy and a bushy nursery on an empty plot of the Kuwait embassy lay the three thermal flasks, neatly wrapped in white medical plaster. One of the caps of the metallic flasks was marked "XXD OPEN" with a ballpoint pen.

Top police and National Security Intelligence (NSI) officials sealed off the road and barred everyone from approaching the area. Only 100 yards away at the main entrance to the US Embassy, a group of armed policemen stood guard.

An army Major who arrived at the spot to examine the three 'devices' said the flasks could be 'improvised explosive devices' which could go off with minimum impact or heat. He said they want to be absolutely sure about what is in the flasks.

An NSI team arrived there with an explosives detector and a portable x-ray machine and examined the three flasks for 'residual traces of explosives' with the detector.

Officials said the detector did not show any trace of explosives and they would now have to x-ray the flasks. Rummaging desperately through the operation manuals of the machine, the NSI team tried in vain to operate the US-made x-ray machine.

Another small x-ray machine was called in by the NSI and that too would not function. At exactly 3:00pm, more than seven hours after the mysterious flasks were found, the dejected NSI team formally asked the army for help and left the scene with their luggage.

Later, a police bomb expert said he could help with the x-ray machines. In the evening, the NSI team arrived at the site with their x-ray machines again. Police then fetched a set of x-ray films from Gulshan market and went for the x-ray, which revealed that the containers were fully empty and safe.

It took the authorities 11 hours to run the check. The dubious-looking flasks were left at the same spot with the army personnel saying that they would collect the containers from the spot during daytime today.

Gulshan police have filed a general diary.