A powerful bomb ripped through a crowded street in northern Bangladesh yesterday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens in an attack police said may have been carried out by a suicide bomber on a bicycle.
The blast in the town of Netrokona occurred about an hour after authorities defused another bomb in the same area, said police officials.
Authorities initially said one person was killed in the blast, but the police officials later confirmed that four people, including the bomber, were killed at the scene and two victims died of their injuries on the way to hospitals.
The police officials said they believe the blast may have been detonated by a suicide bomber who was riding through the crowd on a bicycle. At least 45 people, including nine police, were injured, they said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but a series of explosions in two other Bangladesh towns nearly two weeks ago have been blamed on militants who seek to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh, a largely Muslim country governed by secular laws.
Police detained and questioned more than 200 suspects after the recent blasts, which killed a total of 14 people, but have so far not officially charged any suspects.
Witnesses to yesterday's blast described a scene of bloodied victims and screaming survivors.
"It was a terrible sight. People were screaming in pain all around," said Shymolendu Pal, a journalist with Dhaka's Ittefaq newspaper.
He and several other journalists had gathered in the area before the blast to report on the other bomb police said they had earlier defused.
Pal and other witnesses reported seeing many injured being taken to hospitals with legs or hands torn apart, raising fears the death toll in the blast could rise.
Among the dead was an activist whose organization, Udichi Shilpi Ghosti, or the Rising Sun Artists Group, has recently held several anti-militant concerts, police said.
The woman, who was not identified, was traveling in a motor rickshaw when the bomb exploded nearby, police said, adding that she was not believed to have been a specific target.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the