Police in Bangladesh yesterday continued interrogating detainees believed connected to a series of more than 100 small bomb blasts across the predominantly Muslim country that killed two people and wounded 125 others.
The homemade bombs -- many packed only with sawdust and planted outside government offices or courthouses -- were apparently intended to cause limited damage, authorities said.
"We are working hard and our investigation is moving positively," Dhaka Metropolitan police official Mohammed Mazharul said. "We are adequately alert and have put necessary security measures in the capital."
Fifty suspects were arrested on Wednesday just hours after the near-simultaneous bombings rocked the country, the state-run news agency, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, reported.
A bicycle-rickshaw driver and a 10-year-old boy were killed in separate blasts, and at least 125 people were injured. Most of the wounded were believed to have suffered minor burns, the news agency said.
No claims of responsibility were made, but leaflets from a banned Islamic group -- the Jumatul Mujahedin -- were found at the scene of all the explosions, officials said. The group wants to establish an Islamic state in Bangladesh, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation governed by secular laws.
In recent years, several small militant Islamic groups advocating Islamic rule have sprung up in Bangladesh, mostly in the impoverished northern and southern regions. A number of those groups have been blamed by the government for a spate of bomb attacks, killings, robberies, extortion and harassment of villagers.
A bomb that exploded in the High Court's parking lot in the capital Dhaka on Wednesday slightly injured two people, a police officer working at the time said.
"I heard a loud bang from the car park, and there was saw dust everywhere," officer Mrinal Kanti Tripura said.
Police later recovered a homemade bomb hidden inside a small box and cushioned with saw dust in the parking lot, which is used by judges, Tripura said.
Bangladesh's media expressed concern over the attacks yesterday and demanded that the government find the culprits.
"Each one of us in the country -- government, opposition, or neutral -- must today unite behind our common purpose to root out the terrorists and defend our democracy from this unprecedented assault," the Daily Star newspaper said in an editorial.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who left for China before the explosions, described the attacks as a "cowardly, conspiratorial and well-planned terrorist act," the United News of Bangladesh quoted Zia as saying from Beijing.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to
RSS