BOMB ATTACK AT SHIA SITE : No clue, no headway in probe [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

BOMB ATTACK AT SHIA SITE : No clue, no headway in probe

Local October 26, 2015

No major headway was yet made in the investigation into the attack.
On Sunday morning, Chawkbazar police station sub-inspector Jalal Uddin filed a case under the Anti-Terrorism Act accusing unnamed people for the attack, said Lalbagh division additional deputy police commissioner SM Murad Ali.
The police and its other units, however, launched investigation into whether the 10-minute-long attack had any link with militancy and they claimed that the first-ever attack inside the Shia Muslim installation might be an act of ‘anti-liberation forces.’
The investigators on Sunday said that they were interrogating three youths.
None was so far arrested but a few people were being interrogated, said Dhaka Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner (media and public relations) Muntasirul Islam.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police instituted a three-member committee led by its additional commissioner Sheikh Mohammad Maruf Hassan to probe the incident. The probe body was asked to submit its report in a week.
‘We are not sure about the motive for the blast,’ said a probe body member.
Shia leaders termed the incident an unacceptable sectarian attack to ‘destroy the love for Hazrat Imam Hussain (RA).’
Schoolboy Sazzad Hossain Sanju, 12, was killed and 118 others were given treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Mitford Hospital.
DMCH causalities block-1 senior consultant Asharfuddin Khan said that seven each male and female patients and two children were still getting treatment at the hospital till Sunday evening.
‘One of them, Mohammad Jamal, 50, is still in the intensive care unit,’ he said, adding, ‘All the victims sustained injuries from splinters.’
Witnesses and police said that at least four crude bombs were hurled on a gathering of several thousand Shia Muslims at about 1:45am on Saturday, when they were about to bring out a procession marking the Ashura.
Inspector general of police AKM Shahidul Hoque told reporters on Saturday that the attackers might have been in disguise as devotees in the gathering.
The witnesses said that the compound was so packed that the people could not understand what happened when the first bomb exploded at about 1:45am and continued for about 10 minutes.
‘People started gathering there from Friday night for the parade. We were in the compound along with my family members. Suddenly, we heard a sound like tube-light explosion,’ 34-year-old man Sanwar Hossain Sanu recalled at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
He added, ‘Three to four bombs were blasted one by one. There were huge gathering, people laid down on the ground and later we were rushed to the hospital being riddled with splinters.’
Another witness, Atikul Islam Emon, said that bombs were hurled from inside the compound as it was impossible for the attackers to use nearby Shia-owned building in the early hours.
‘All the bombs were hurled in the middle of the compound,’ 24-year-old Emon said.
He, however, blamed poor security arrangement at the entrance made by the police and Rapid Action Battalion.
Emon, among others, alleged that people entered almost without being frisked.
RAB-10 commanding officer Jahangir Alam Matubbar told reporters, ‘We had deployed enough personnel and they were on duty here…But, we could not search each of the people coming here because it was huge gathering.’
He said that a youth, who was capturing photo from the morning, was held for interrogation for his suspicious movement.
Inspector general of police, however, termed the attack a ‘premeditated killing’ by the ‘people who do not want stability in the country.’
He said, ‘Our firm believe is that the group, who did not want the country to be liberated, are involved in the incident.’
He found links between the killing of assistant sub-inspector Ibrahim Mollah during his duty at Gabtali on October 22 and the attack on Shia gathering.
‘Based on the statement of the youth whom we had detained after the ASI killing, the police recovered bombs at Kamrangirchar which were similar to the bombs found unexploded at the Shia establishment,’ he said after visiting the injured at the DMCH.
‘We are not sure whether the same group, allegedly involved in the killing of ASI and storing the crude bombs at Kamrangirchar, are involved in the attack on Shia establishment,’ one of the leading investigators said during his visit at the crime scene.
‘We are analysing the CCTV footage of crime scene of 12 hours before the incident and also few hours after the blast,’ another investigator said.
Shia Muslim leader Syed Habib Reza Hussaini told New Age, ‘It is difficult to describe how exactly the incident took place…We were getting preparation to bring out a parade and suddenly the bombs were hurled…Not only Shia Muslims, rather other Muslims who have love for Hazrat Imam Hussain (RA) also gathered here.’
He said, ‘They [attackers] have wanted us to keep away from our domination by exploding two or four bombs, but it is never possible to destroy our love for Hazrat Hussain (RA).’
He said 118 people were injured in the attack.
He demanded ‘a complete investigation’ into the attack.
The home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, and international affairs adviser to prime minister Gowher Rizvi also said that a complete investigation would reveal the fact.
SITE Intelligence Group, a US-based terrorism monitoring website, in its website claimed that ‘The Islamic State claimed credit for the bombings that targeted Shi’ites in Dhaka.’
The claim, however, could not be independently verified as investigators said they were also looking into the claims previously made for the killings of two foreign nationals, Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella on September 28 and Japanese farmer Hoshi Kunio on October 3.
Nur Khan, the director investigation for Ain O Salish Kendra which monitors minority rights among others, said that some isolated attacks had taken place during Muharram parade at different places in the past one decade but ‘I cannot remember any attack inside their headquarters [in Bangladesh] in recent history.’
The attack sparks protests locally and internationally.
The European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States in separate statements condemned the attack and demanded thorough investigation into the incident.
Political parties including Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Communist Party of Bangladesh and Bangladesher Samajtantrik Party also condemned the attack.
Hussaini Dalan, originally built during 17th century in Dhaka as the house of the imam of the Shia community, was the venue for gatherings held during the month of Muharram, to commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein (RA), the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (PBAH).