1st LD Writethru: Nine people killed, scores injured in Bangladesh stampede

DHAKA, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- At least nine people died and nearly 50 were injured in a stampede in Bangladesh's southeastern city of Chittagong on Monday as many people gathered at a community center for funeral rituals of a leader.

The city's police chief Iqbal Bahar told journalists that the incident took place at the Chittagong's Rima Community Center, one of the 14 places where the funeral ritual food was arranged specially for non-Muslim people.

Most of the victims reportedly died from suffocation.

The victims died while scurrying into the community center for the lunch offered as part of the funeral rituals.

ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury, a leader of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling Bangladesh Awami League party and also a former mayor of Chittagong (some 242 km southeast of capital Dahka), died on Dec. 15, bringing the curtain down on a glittering political career spanning over five decades. Enditem