The AL, meanwhile, will stage a demonstration tomorrow to protest yesterday's bomb attack on the Bangladesh-born British high commissioner.

AL International Affairs Secretary Syed Abul Hossain MP, who was carrying a bouquet for the British high commissioner, was stopped at Banani gate of the Dhaka Cantonment at 10:00pm.

Hossain told The Daily Star that he carried the bouquet for the high commissioner on behalf of AL President and Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Sheikh Hasina. "But the officers on duty at Banani gate didn't allow me in even after knowing my identity."

He said former ambassador Farooq Chowdhury, who is the chairman of the international affairs sub-committee of the party, was also not allowed to see the injured British high commissioner.

UNB says: Awami League Central Working Committee (ALCWC) in an urgent meeting last night strongly condemned the bomb attack on the British high commissioner, which it said was "not an isolated incident".

Chaired by party chief Sheikh Hasina, the ALCWC in a resolution alleged that under the patronage of the government, religious extremists launched bomb attacks on Mymensingh cinema halls, Hazrat Shahjalal's shrine in Sylhet, Pagla mazar 'urs' in Tangail and in Dinajpur and Satkhira.

"The BNP-Jamaat alliance government has turned Bangladesh into a safe sanctuary of religious extremists," the AL resolution said, adding that such heinous incidents are taking place one after another in the wake of government's inaction against the extremists.