Officials and employees refrained from attending offices in the private sector, markets and business establishment remained closed and shops kept their shutters down as part of the mourning. Processions were brought out all day long condemning the suicide bomb attack that killed seven and injured 60 others.

Judges and lawyers did not attend duties.

Political parties brought out separate protest processions in different parts of the district demanding punishment to the culprits and security of people.

The slain lawyers -- advocates Amzad Hossain, former secretary of Gazipur Bar Association, and Golam Faruk, former member of the association, -- were buried at their village homes after namaj-e-janaza in the district town.

Police meanwhile continued their hunt for the militants in the district and arrested two suspected Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) members in connection with the bomb attack.

The court premises

None of the lawyers came to the courts or the bar association office yesterday. "We don't even know if the courts exist or not," said Advocate Sultan Uddin, president of Gazipur Bar Association. "We are mourning the dead and struggling to take proper care of the injured."

All the courts of the judges and magistrates gave a deserted look with only police guarding those. Some judges went to courts but did not do any duty.

JANAZA, BURIAL
Hundreds of people joined the funerals of the slain lawyers. The namaj-e-janaza of advocates Amzad Hossain and Golam Faruk was held at 10:15am and 2:15pm at Rajbari ground in the town.

Their bodies were first taken to the bar association office and then to the janaja venue.

Lawmakers, government officials, fellow lawyers, police officials, relatives, clients, and others attended the janaza and paid their last respect to the dead in

in an emotional atmosphere.

The agitated lawyers however did not allow Agriculture Minister MK Anwar, also the district minister for Gazipur, to see the body of Golam Faruk at the bar association. He later attended the janaza.

Amzad was buried at his home village at Banua under Gazipur Sadar Police Station and Faruk at Iquria in Korihata in Kapasia upazila.

FAMILY TRAGEDY
Advocate Amzad's wife fainted Tuesday afternoon. She lost the lone bread-earner of her five-member family. She was wailing ceaselessly when this correspondent talked to her yesterday afternoon at her residence at South Chhayabithi in the town.

"He had been talking about the suicide bombers for the last several days and expressed his concern about the judiciary," she recalled. "I asked him not go to courts but he replied how to run the family if he stopped doing his professional work."

The family members demanded punishment of the killers and blamed the government for its 'failure' to provide security to people.

"If they (government) would have deployed police as they have done now, my husband would have been alive now," she added.

CASE FILED
Sub-inspector (SI) Alamgir of Gazipur Sadar Police Sation on Tuesday filed two cases -- one for murders and another under the Explosive Substances Act -- with Sadar Police Station against an unidentified dead in connection with the bomb attack.

In the FIR (first information report), Alamgir said there are symptoms that the JMB carried out the blast.

The unidentified person, whose body was found at the bombing spot, is a suspected member of JMB suicide squad and made the attack, the FIR said.

The complainant also mentioned Mahbubul Alam Shahin, who was nabbed from Gazipur Sadar Hospital and now undergoing treatment under police custody, as a suspect in the blast.

2 JMB SUSPECTS ARRESTED
Gazipur police nabbed two persons -- Mohammad Ibrahim, 22, and Moulana Samsuzzaman, 43, -- as suspected JMB men from the town Tuesday night.

Police said Samsuzzaman is an assistant superintendent of a madrasa at Chawkbazar in the district town and cousin to a JMB member. JMB chief Abdur Rahman used to visit the madrasa.

Ibrahim, who hails from Gouripur in Netrakona, was nabbed from a slum in the town. He came to the town two days ago and his movement was suspicious, said police.