DHAKA, 30 January 2005 — Bangladesh has asked American agency FBI and other global detective agencies to help investigate a deadly grenade attack on an opposition political rally as one person was killed, over 250 injured and dozens were arrested yesterday in a nationwide strike protesting the bombing.
“We’re seeking assistance from Scotland Yard police, Interpol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the US to help us carry out necessary investigations,” Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan said.
“I’ve already talked to the US ambassador in Dhaka to provide FBI assistance in nabbing the criminals responsible for the heinous grenade attack,” he added, according to the official news agency BSS.
The call for help came after appeals by the main Awami League opposition party and Amnesty International for a thorough probe, as demonstrators clashed with police and dozens of people were arrested at the start of a three-day strike to protest Thursday’s attack that killed five people.
Assailants hurled a grenade at the close of the rally called by the Awami League, killing former Finance Minister Shah A.M.S. Kibria and four others.
The Awami League said Friday the Muslim-majority nation was being “held hostage to violent extremism and radicalism” aimed at wrecking its secular foundations and demanded a full investigation into the blast.
The government, an Islamist-allied coalition led by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, dismissed the charges as “emotional outpourings.”
Yesterday, the first day of the general strike, demonstrators fought with police in different parts of the country, smashing vehicle windows and blocking train services.
Police baton-charged protesters in Dhaka and arrested over 40 people after clashes between demonstrators and security forces, city police chief Mizanur Rahman told reporters.
The clashes with police followed violence Friday in Dhaka in which over 50 people were hurt when police fired tear gas and wielding batons dispersed demonstrators carrying Kibria’s coffin to a martyrs’ monument, witnesses said.
The dawn-to-dusk strike which ends tomorrow emptied towns and cities of traffic and shut businesses, shops and schools, police and witnesses said. Saturrday is a working day in Bangladesh.
Awami League spokesman Saber Hossain Chowdhury said two top party leaders needed hospital treatment after being caught up in protests yesterday that were broken up by police.
Some 8,000 riot police were guarding key locations in Dhaka, police said.
Police also said they arrested five people in the southeastern port city of Chittagong when they tried to demonstrate outside Awami League offices.
Strikes are common in Bangladesh where the opposition enforced 22 shutdowns last year, despite pleas from aid donors and business to find other ways to protest, saying such actions drained the nation’s impoverished economy.
The strike halted cargo deliveries at Chittagong’s port and disrupted rail services, officials said. Other parts of the country also ground to a standstill.
“Shops are closed and inter-city buses and truck services are suspended,” police chief Abdul Aziz Sarker said in southwestern Khulna.
Thursday’s attack was the latest in a series, including one last August when over 20 people were killed in a grenade assault on an Awami League rally that the party branded an assassination attempt against its leader, former Prime Minister Hasina Wajed.
In its statement, London-based Amnesty International accused the government of failing to investigate earlier attacks with “rigour and determination.”
The group said “unless such inquiries are conducted thoroughly and impartially, they will lack credibility and the culprits will be sheltered from justice.”
The Awami League has accused the government of failing to curb rampant corruption and crime. The government says it is working hard to tackle a grim law-and-order situation inherited from the previous Awami League administration.
Dhaka Rules Out Postponement of SAARC Summit Again
Bangladesh yesterday described as baseless reports in a section of Indian press that the 13th summit of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) would be postponed because of Thursday’s grenade attack.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zahirul Haque said Bangladesh has finalized all preparations to hold the summit and there is no threat nor “do we apprehend any such thing during next month’s SAARC summit in Dhaka.”
“We didn’t receive any threat, nor do we apprehend any such thing,” the director general of the external publicity wing said.
He said special security arrangements are being taken to ensure foolproof security for the SAARC leaders who will be attending the summit in Dhaka.
Meanwhile, sources said an advance team from India is now in the capital to see the security and other arrangements for the summit. Similar teams had come from other SAARC countries before the postponement of the summit due to tsunami catastrophe.
Seven bulletproof cars have been kept ready for the South Asian leaders.
— With input from agencies
