At least one of the bombs went
kaboom!during the prayer attended by hundreds of thousands of people at the sprawling Sholakia grounds in the district of Kishoreganj, about 90 kilometers north of Dhaka. The grounds hold the country’s largest open-air gatherings for Eid-al-Fitr.
After the blast killed two officers, police fired on the attackers and killed one of them, Assistant Superintendent Tofazzal Hossain said. A female bystander was also killed in the crossfire. More than a dozen other people were maimed with gunshot or bomb shrapnel wounds, including two at death's door, he said.
Police cordoned off the area and searched the devotees as well as nearby houses for suspects in hiding, said resident Shafiqul Islam, who was among those offering Eid prayers.
The violence comes just days after a deadly hostage crisis in which 28 people were killed, including 20 hostages, two police and six of the attackers.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday’s attack, but the government insisted it was carried out by domestic gunnies fighting to destabilize Prime Minister
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
’s government.
The country’s information minister said the target of the attack was the police convoy patrolling the religious gathering.
"It is a totally political move. They are out to destabilize the government. It is a political attack to oust and topple the secular government of Sheikh Hasina," Minister Hasanul Haq Inu told Indian broadcaster CNN-News 18.
Hasina government accuses her political opponents of backing the myrmidon agenda in Bangladesh, an allegation the opposition parties vehemently deny. Many Bangladeshis have said they were horrified by the attacks, but determined to stand against them.
"The rise of such a minuscule militancy can be rooted out very soon," said Dhaka resident Mohammad Nizam Uddin Jitu after participating in Eid prayers on Thursday at the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque in the capital.
"The people of this country are united," he said. "The people of this country are peace loving. The people of this country never support militancy."