They couldn’t believe their eyes

Abu Nayeem noticed an acrid smell of gas right after stepping inside Pashchim Talla Baitus Salam Mosque of Narayanganj on Friday night to say the Esha prayers. The smell became so overpowering that it made it difficult for him to stay inside for long.

"It was so suffocating that we could not breathe inside," he said.

Nayeem, a resident of Pashchim Talla, finished his prayers quickly. As he took a few steps out of the mosque around 8:35pm, he heard a loud bang.

A scene of devastation started unfolding before his eyes, such that he had never witnessed before, and the knowledge that that he himself had narrowly escaped the blast.

"I couldn't believe my eyes. The worshipers were coming out screaming for water," he told The Daily Star at the Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in the capital.

This newspaper talked to half a dozen witnesses who narrated the harrowing events of Friday night.

After the offered prayers, they said, a number of younger devotees had already left and the rest continued with their prayers with six air conditioning units in the mosque running.

Faisal Ahmed, son of the mosque's imam, said he left three minutes before he heard the blast.

"I initially thought that the transformer had gone off. But then I heard screams. As I ran back to the mosque, I saw the devastation.

"No one had their clothes on, they had all been burnt in the fire. There was some water in front of the mosque, where everyone was rolling around on the ground to douse the flames. Black smoke spewed out and shrouded the entire area," he said.

"I was so shocked that I couldn't figure out what I should do," Faisal said.

Fahim Hossain, a witness who also escaped the explosion, said, "It was a hellish situation. I don't know what good deeds I have done as I escaped it, despite standing just two feet outside the mosque."

Hearing the screams, local people came forward. Some splashed water on those lying on the ground groaning while others were standing around dumbfounded.

The injured devotees were sent to a nearby hospital by CNG auto-rickshaws and other vehicles.

Many of them were so badly burnt that locals could not initially recognise them.

Rubi Aktar had been looking for her husband in the clogged water in front of the mosque after the explosion.

She looked at all the victims lying there one by one but could not identify her husband.

"People were rolling around in the standing water. Bodies were burnt in such a way that I could not recognise my husband," she said, wailing in front of the operation theatre of the burn unit on Friday night.

"I am yet to see my husband and yet to know about his condition," she said, with a blank look on her face.

Rahela Khatun, wife of Imam Hossain, an RMG worker, said, "Suddenly, I saw my husband screaming. 'Save me!' he kept screaming. He came out of the mosque and ran to the house. Then we came here."