Police yesterday said they have arrested four men in connection with the bombing of a Muslim shrine that killed three people and injured about 100, including the British ambassador to Bangladesh.
British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury suffered a leg injury in the blast during noon prayers Friday at Hazrat Shahjalal shrine in Sylhet.
The four suspects were detained late Friday, a police officer said on condition of anonymity. He did not elaborate.
Three of those detained are members of the student wing of the country's main opposition party, the Awami League, private TV station ATN Bangla reported.
Sylhet Mayor Badruddin Ahmed Kamran, an Awami League leader, denied the students were involved in the attack.
"The government is using the violence to crack down on the opposition," he said.
Choudhury was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Dhaka. Choudhury, 44, was visiting the shrine after assuming his post last week.
No one claimed responsibility for the blast in Sylhet, 190km northeast of Dhaka.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia expressed "deep shock" at the blast and conveyed "sympathy to the British envoy and other injured people," her office said.
The Awami League has accused police of security lapses and planned to hold protests in Sylhet yesterday.
In January, a bomb killed five worshippers at the shrine. Police had no suspects despite questioning more than 20 people detained after the blast.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told