5 children hurt

Five children, including two brothers, were injured when an abandoned crude bomb went off at a village in Bheramara upazila of Kushtia yesterday.
The children, aged between two and seven, found a ball-like object inside a rice mill at Bilshuka village around 2:30pm, witnesses said.
Taking it for a toy, as the children fiddled with it, the bomb exploded, injuring all five.
The siblings Bapi, 7, and Pappu, 2, sustained splinters in hands, neck, jaw and chest while their playmates Sakibur Rahman, 5, Sifat Hasan, 6, and Rabbi, 5, received splinters in different parts of their bodies.
The victims were rushed to Bheramara Upazila Health Complex. The brothers were later shifted to Kushtia Medical College Hospital as their condition deteriorated.
However, the duo's condition had improved and they were now out of danger, said Dr Azizunnahar, assistant director of the hospital.
Following the blast, police and the Upazila Nirbahi Officer of Bheramara visited the spot.
Describing it as a powerful crude bomb, Parvez Islam, officer-in-charge of Bheramara Police Station, said the bomb might have been thrown earlier by miscreants but did not explode.
Police were investigating the incident, the OC said.
A number of children were injured in explosions of abandoned crude bombs across the country since November last year when the country saw indiscriminate use of crude bombs during hartals and blockades enforced by the then BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance to resist the 10th parliamentary election.
Even after the January 5 election, incidents of explosion of abandoned bombs are reported from different places of the country.