DHAKA, 8 October 2005 — After recent bomb attacks in the court premises, Bangladesh decide to provide armed security to judges across the country, sources said. “Armed bodyguards both at home and work will be given to judges,” an official said yesterday.
The decision came after a delegation of lower court judges met State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfuzzaman Babar seeking protection following the blasts in three towns on Monday that killed two people and wounded 15, including a judge. “The government considers security of judges a top priority,” the official in the Interior Ministry said.
Some of the judges had also received anonymous threat calls; he quoted the judges as telling the interior minister.
Analysts said the blasts in courthouses, blamed on the outlawed militant Jamatul Mujahedeen group, could be aimed at pressuring the judiciary to introduce Islamic rule in the country. The blasts, which came less than two months after hundreds of bombs went off across the country on one day, may also have sought to terrorize judges due to try scores of people arrested for the violence.
Police said on Friday they had increased security during the fasting month of Ramadan and ahead of a festival of the country’s Hindu minority beginning on tomorrow.
Police arrested 11 new suspects in their hunt for those involved in the recent spate of attacks in Bangladesh, sources said.
The men, arrested late Thursday and early yesterday, were believed to be members of the Jamatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, officials said.
Floods Kill 12, Thousands Homeless
At least 12 people have died, up to 50,000 have fled their homes and about 1.5 million are marooned following heavy rains that flooded several districts in northern Bangladesh, government officials said yesterday.
The deaths were mostly caused by the collapse of dozens of mud houses, an official told reporters in the town of Bogra, one of the areas affected by the flood, about 200 km north of Dhaka.
