Bangladesh tightens security for independence celebrations

Bangladeshi authorities today stepped up security across the country in preparation for the 34th anniversary of independence, won in a bloody civil war with Pakistan, officials said.

Officials said there were no specific threats from any group, but they were on guard in the wake of a spate of recent suicide bombings that have killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens of others.

Investigators blamed the bombings on an outlawed Islamic group, Jumatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which wants to establish strict sharia laws in Muslim-majority, but officially secular, Bangladesh.

“We are ready to ensure adequate security for public places and important government installations,” said a senior official with the special security force, Rapid Action Battalion.

Bangladesh – known as East Pakistan at the time – proclaimed independence and started a separatist war on March 26, 1971, after Pakistan’s military rulers refused to transfer power to an elected party.

With assistance from neighbouring India, Bangladeshis triumphed nine months later on December 16, 1971, when Pakistani soldiers surrendered in Dhaka.

Special security agents were to cordon off a national mausoleum in Savar, just outside Dhaka, where top leaders of the government and the opposition political parties were expected to pay tribute to the martyrs early tomorrow.

Security officials would use metal detectors at all entrances of a park, where about 93,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendered in Dhaka 34 years ago, he said. Plain-clothes officers were to be posted at all public places in Dhaka, the official said.