Crude bombs explode outside Grameen bank headquarters business outlet in B'desh capital

    Dhaka, Nov 10 (PTI) A series of crude bomb explosions took place in Bangladesh's capital on Monday, including outside the head office of the Grameen Bank and a business outlet owned by an aide of Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, police said.
    A 28-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a series of cocktail attacks in the capital, the chief adviser's office said in a statement.
    "Two miscreants on a motorcycle arrived and hurled the crude bomb in front of the road of the Grameen Bank at around 3.45 am in Dhaka's Mirpur," a police official said, adding that no one was injured in the blast.
    The attack was one of the many instances of sporadic violence that have hit Dhaka amid brewing tensions in Bangladesh's political landscape.
    Separately, two crude bomb explosions took place on the road in front of and within the premises of the food products enterprise Probartana in Mohammadpur. Unidentified men also set three buses ablaze in the capital.
    Police said no casualty was reported in the attacks in front of Grameen Bank, and the Prabartana -- a business owned by fisheries and livestock adviser Farida Akhter.
    The chief adviser's office said that the initial investigation revealed that the arrested suspect was a member of Chhatra League, the outlawed student wing of Awami League led by deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
    "The suspect is being interrogated regarding multiple incidents, including the cocktail explosions on the premises of Kakrail’s St. Mary’s Cathedral and St. Joseph School, a Catholic-run famous educational institution,” the statement said.
    It said Dhaka Police, in coordination with elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), “intensified a citywide manhunt to apprehend all individuals involved in these heinous and cowardly acts of violence”.
    Yunus, who is currently the Chief Adviser of the interim government, founded the Grameen Bank in 1983 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work in poverty alleviation and the empowerment of poor women through it.
    According to police, the explosions in Prabartana at the Mohammadpur area occurred around 7:10 am, when two motorcycle-borne miscreants "hurled the crude bombs in front of the establishment, both of which exploded with loud bangs."
    Meanwhile, police said “unidentified miscreants” also exploded crude bombs at two places in the capital's Dhanmondi area.
    Motorcycle riders detonated two bombs near Ibn Sina Hospital, said to be run by Jamaat-e-Islami, and another two in front of a major crossing.
    Hours later, a 50-year-old man, "a listed gangster", was shot dead in front of a hospital in the old part of Dhaka.
    Police said they were looking for clues to identify his assailants.
    He had narrowly escaped an attack in 2023, three months after his release on bail after 26 years in prison, The Daily Star newspaper reported.
    The incidents came as police escalated their vigil, staging security drills across the city ahead of November 13, when Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) is set to fix the date for handing its verdict against deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina after trial in absentia.
    The ICT-BD prosecution team demanded capital punishment for Hasina, particularly for her attempts to ruthlessly tame last year’s violent student-led street protest dubbed the July Uprising, which toppled her Awami League regime.
    The Bangladesh capital has been witnessing frequent flash marches for the past several months when Hasina’s now disbanded Awami League activists suddenly appear on the streets, stage processions and then disperse.
    Police said they arrested over 3,000 activists of the “banned party” until last month, and the figure increased as raids were carried out every day to arrest more. Thirty-four Awami League activists were arrested in 24 hours ending Monday morning, it added.
    Bangladesh troops have been deployed for the past 15 months to assist civilian authorities, and last week, half of their around 60,000 personnel on policing duties were brought back to barracks for rest and training.
    But the situation appeared precarious as a seven-day deadline set by the interim government for political parties to reach a consensus on the referendum on 84 reform proposals, some of which contradict the existing constitution and the implementation of the July Charter, expired on Monday.
    Awami League remained absent from the political scene as the interim government disbanded the party until its leaders were “served justice,” while ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) emerged as the frontrunner, with its once ally 'Jamaat' being its main rival.
    But BNP binned the government proposal for settling its differences with Jamaat through dialogue, saying it was a “government-created crisis” ahead of the planned national elections in February.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)