Bangladesh police arrest 3 involved in Shia shrine blasts; ISIS Not link to it
Ahlul Bayt News Agency – The Bangladeshi police has arrested three people in connection with the bomb blasts here targeting Shia community that claimed the life of a 12-year-old boy in an attack claimed by ISIS.
“Three men were detained after the blasts and were handed over to the detective branch for questioning,” Dhaka police’s assistant deputy commissioner Sanjib Kumar Roy told reporters. Police filed a case over the bomb explosions under the tough Anti Terrorism Act, accusing unidentified miscreants.
The Bangladesh police arrested a string of Opposition officials on Sunday, a day after the bombing of the country’s main Shia shrine killed one person and left nearly 80 wounded.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the rare attack on the Shia community in the capital which occurred as thousands gathered for the annual Ashura procession.
But home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal denied the jihadist group was behind Saturday’s blast, which came just weeks after an Italian aid worker and a Japanese farmer were shot dead — attacks also claimed by ISIS.
“We want to say it clearly that ISIS does not exist in Bangladesh,” the minister told reporters. “We have not found any basis or anything concrete regarding the (ISIS) claim.”
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has blamed the Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its main Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islami for the foreigners’ murders.
The police said they detained overnight a former BNP lawmaker in Dhaka and several senior officials from both parties, adding that this was related to previous unrest and unconnected to Saturday’s blast. “He (the BNP lawmaker) was arrested under the country’s anti-terrorism laws,” inspector M. Kamruzzaman said.
A BNP spokesman accused the police of using the blast and foreigners’ murders as an excuse to launch a fresh opposition crackdown.
“It is unfortunate that they’re using these attacks as a pretext to crack down on the Opposition,” BNP spokesman Asaduzzaman Ripon said, adding that over a hundred Opposition activists have been arrested in recent weeks.
Mr Kamal said the culprits planned such an attack under a well drawn up design coinciding with the Shia Muslim mourning festival of Ashura so that the incident could be attributed to the ultra Sunni ISIS.
“For now, I would also like to tell you briefly that all the three incidents, the murder of the two foreign nationals and the blasts at the Husseini Dalan, are interlinked… The same group of people masterminded the attack to create instability and discredit our (ruling Awami League) government,” the Mr Kamal said. The police said three bombs were hurled at the procession joined by more than 20,000 people at around 1:30 am at Huseni Dalan, an important 17th century centre of learning for the Shia community.
They said it was believed to be the first attack on the Shias in the Sunni-dominated Bangladesh, which has witnessed an increase in violence in 2015 claimed by the ISIS.
Hours after the attack, the US-based Site Intelligence Group that monitors militant threats reported that the ISIS claimed the responsibility for the bombing on the Shia shrine.
The attack came hours after a suicide bombing at a Shia Muslim mosque in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province killed at least 12 people.
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