Investigation continues into Bangladesh bombings

Police interrogated scores of detainees today and beefed up security patrols in towns and cities following a wave of small bomb blasts across Bangladesh that killed two people and wounded 125 others.

At least 65 people, including several suspected members of banned Islamic groups, were detained for questioning throughout the country after the near-simultaneous bombings rocked the country yesterday, police and news reports said.

The homemade bombs – many packed only with sawdust and planted outside government offices or courthouses – were apparently intended to cause limited damage, authorities said.

No claims of responsibility were made, but leaflets from a banned Islamic group – the Jumatul Mujahedin – were found at the scene of the explosions, officials said. The group wants to establish an Islamic state in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation governed by secular laws.

“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.”

Security was increased throughout the country, with extra police patrolling streets and guarding important buildings, transportation terminals and water and power stations.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who left for China before the explosions, was expected to cut short her visit and return home tomorrow, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, a senior government minister, said in Dhaka.

Meanwhile, police in southwestern Satkhira town said they have linked two suspects – who were arrested after a tip-off – to one of the bombings, police official Mohammed Delwar Hossain Saidee told reporters. A local magistrate gave police eight days to detain and interrogate the suspects.

One of the suspects was arrested at his home late yesterday after a witness saw him leaving a packet outside a court building, Saidee said. The packet later exploded, slightly injuring one person. Police also searched his house and found books and leaflets on Ahle Hadith, an Islamic group linked to banned Jumatul Mujahedin.

Saidee said the suspect claimed that a man gave him the packet containing a small, handmade bomb fitted with a timer to leave at the court. The suspect said he thought the device would only make a loud sound and draw attention to the leaflets left at the blast site.

A second suspect was picked up at his shop in the town, 110 miles southwest of the capital, Dhaka. Saidee said the suspect gave conflicting statements, but investigators believe he is a local leader of the banned group.

Police were looking for seven others, based on information given by the two suspects.

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 injured were believed to have suffered minor burns, hospital sources said.

In recent years, several small 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 banned by the government after they were suspected of perpetrating a spate of bomb attacks, killings, robberies, extortion and harassment of villagers.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government joined the United States, Britain, Pakistan, China and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in condemning the bomb blasts.

“Japan expresses its indignation at the bombing incidents. … We firmly uphold our position that terrorism in any forms can never be justified and firmly condemn any acts of terrorism,” a statement issued by the Japanese Embassy in Dhaka said.