LIVE BOMBS IN COURT CREATE CHAOS!

Bombs used by the JMB tend to be crude, homemade devices. A court in Bangladesh trying suspected Islamic militants was thrown into panic when five live bombs were produced as exhibits during the hearing of a case. The discovery prompted the presiding judge to order a hasty adjournment as the court was evacuated.

A security force officer said that he got the "shock of his life" when he realised that the bombs were live. Officials blame police for not defusing the devices before coming to court. The police say they were not asked to.

The incident happened during the trial of five suspected members of the banned Islamist organisation, Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). The JMB are accused of targeting courts.
The JMB is accused of carrying out a string of bomb attacks across Bangladesh at the end of last year. They were alleged to have been caught in possession of the explosives in December 2005, and the devices were brought to the court as evidence. The BBC's Qadir Kallol in Dhaka says that the only trouble was that police forgot to defuse them.

When Captain Tareq Rahman Khan of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) saw the Public Prosecutor, Shahidul Islam, uncovering the explosives in front of the judge, he admitted suffering temporary heart failure. "I got the shock of my life," he was quoted as saying in the New Age newspaper. Captain Khan warned the prosecutor that the bombs could go off at any moment and cause carnage in the crowded courtroom.

RAB officials say that they asked the police to defuse the bombs after they were seized. But the police said they had not received any such communication. Later on Wednesday, police did eventually take the bombs away, but with the utmost caution. "It was fortunate we were not all blown to smithereens," one officer was reported as saying.

BBC NEWS REPORT.