10 injured in bomb explosion at Kantaji’s Temple [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

10 injured in bomb explosion at Kantaji’s Temple

Local December 06, 2015

Ten people were injured inside a jatra pandal besides Kantaji’s Temple at Kaharole in Dinajpur after a ‘improvised time bomb’ exploded on early Saturday during a traditional festival.
The police investigators suspected that it was either an act of ‘militancy’ or it might have caused by local infighting.
Police officials said that they picked up five locals for interrogation for the incident that took place in an area which was guarded by law enforcers amid recent incidents of shootings and explosions.
The Dinajpur police officials said that Kahalore police station officer-in-charge Abdul Majid was withdrawn and was attached to the office of the superintendent of police following the incident.
Kahalore police station sub-inspector Tajrul Islam Sardar was given the charge until another inspector was posted there, the officials said.
Majid said that police were interrogating the five students of different educational institutions who were enjoying the jatra during the incident.
Kantaji’s Temple-based ‘ras mela’ (a religious festival) organisers said that the explosion took place inside the Bholanath jatra pandal at about 1:00am.
Bholanath jatra director Mahadev Kumar said that they had heard sound of explosion twice when jatra was being staged.
Six of the injured – Mokaddes, 23, of Rangpur, Saidur, 27, and Jabbar, 28, of Kaharole upazila, Mithu, 30, of Dinajpur, Umakanta Das, 22, of Birganj upazila, and Sadhon, 35, of Nilphamari – were admitted to Dinajpur Medical College Hospital.
Dinajpur Medical College Hospital’s director Tarun Kanti Haldar said, ‘All the six had splinter injuries in the lower portion of the body.’
He said all but one was improving.
The organisers said that the month-long annual festival began at the temple on November 25 amid tight police protection.
Police officials said that the bomb might have been planted in the ground as most of the injured suffered splinter injuries in the lower part of the body.
‘It was mobile-phone equipped handmade time bomb,’ Police Bureau of Investigation additional special superintendent NM Nasir Uddin said after visiting the crime scene.
Later in the day, festival organiser Haresh Uddin filed a case with the police station.
Earlier on November 18, unnamed assailants shot at an Italian missionary and physician, Piero Parolari, 64.
Dinajpur district unit International Society for Krishna Consciousness president Birendranath Roy was shot in Dinajpur on November 30.
Kantaji’s Temple was built at Kantanagar not far from the bank of the river Dhepa by Dinajpur rulers. The construction was commissioned by Maharaja Prannath in 1704 and completed during the reign of his adopted successor Maharaja Ramnath some decades later.