Bomb kills four of a family in Bangladesh slum

DHAKA, Jan 13 (Agencies): A woman and her three daughters were killed when a crude bomb exploded in a slum in western Bangladesh on Saturday, police said.

The victims were garbage pickers, who brought home the device thinking it to be a food can, said a police officer in Chapainawabganj town, 330 km west of Dhaka.

"They did not realise it was a bomb and it exploded while they were trying to open it," he said.

Another bomb went off later in the area, which is home to garbage-pickers, but nobody was hurt.

Poice recovered two more live bombs and a search has been ordered through the slum.

Police said they did not know if the bombs had been left behind in the garbage dumps by criminals or Islamist militants who had carried out a wave of bombings in 2005.

"We are investigating," the police officer said, without giving details.

Islamist militants seeking sharia law in mainly Muslim Bangladesh killed at least 30 people and wounded 150 in a spate of countrywide bomb blasts in the second half of 2005.

But their campaign suffered a blow after top leaders were arrested early last year and there have been no major bombings since then.