Posted on 01/13/2004 9:24:25 AM PST by swarthyguy
Bangladesh police have held 24 people for questioning following a bomb attack on a shrine in the city of Sylhet on Monday that killed three people. The bomb, which injured around 30, went off during a festival at the shrine of Muslim saint Hazrat Shah Jalal.
A 14-year-old boy and an unidentified man died instantly and another man died later in hospital.
Shrine officials said up to 50,000 devotees had gathered for the three-day Urs Sharif festival.
Police said the explosion was the first act of violence at the 700-year-old shrine in Sylhet, 192 kilometres (120 miles) north-east of the capital, Dhaka.
Soldiers moved in quickly and cordoned off the shrine as panic spread among the devotees.
No one has admitted the attack and authorities have launched an investigation.
Fish poisoning
By Tuesday, police said activities at the shrine had returned to normal with hundreds of devotees reciting from the Koran and praying.
"The entire town is in a state of shock," teacher Shahadat Hossain told the Reuters news agency.
"We never imagined such things can happen here. This is a holy place."
Doctors have said the death toll may rise as some of the injured are in a critical condition.
Last month, the shrine suffered an attack on its fish - one of the top attractions.
About 500 fish were poisoned in a pond.
Legend says that Hazrat Shah Jalal, who came from Yemen to preach Islam, transformed the evil followers of the local king into fish.
Authorities are still investigating how the tropical fish died last month.
Unexplained explosions are not uncommon in Bangladesh.
A year ago, seven people died when a bomb was thrown at the shrine of another Muslim saint in north-western Tangail district.
Seventeen people were killed when bombs struck two cinemas in the northern town of Mymensingh in December 2002.
And nine people died in explosions at a concert in Dhaka in April 2001.
VOA -
Bomb Explosion at Mosque Kills 3 in Bangladesh Anjana Pasricha New Delhi 13 Jan 2004, 11:16 UTC
In Bangladesh, security has been tightened at a well-known Muslim shrine after a bomb explosion killed three people and injured more than 30 others. Soldiers and police surrounded a 700-year old Muslim shrine in Bangladesh's northeastern city of Sylhet Tuesday - a day after a blast killed or injured dozens of worshippers. Police say the bomb exploded Monday night when the Hazrat Shah-Jalal shrine was packed with several thousand people singing and chanting prayers. The devotees had gathered from various parts of the country to mark the death anniversary of a Muslim saint.
The explosion created panic in Sylhet - a city of nearly two million people in the heart of a vast tea-growing region. It is the second time that a Muslim shrine has been targeted in Bangladesh in the past year. A year ago, seven people were killed when a bomb was hurled at a shrine in northwestern Tangail district.
A political analyst in Dhaka, Ataus Samad, says rivalries between followers of different religious saints could have sparked the attack on the shrine in Sylhet. "There could be some kind of feuding going on between the people who manage this shrine, or between various religious sects," he says.
Police are questioning more than 20 suspects including several women in connection with the blast.
More than 70 people have died in explosions in Bangladesh in recent years. In the worst incident, 17 people were killed when bombs ripped through two cinema halls in the northern town of Mymensingh in December 2002.
Bangladesh has also been troubled by rising crime in its cities in recent years. The government launched a major operation in 2002 to check spiraling crime - the operation ended early last year.
Can't have shrines or saints or anything like that.
A muslim shrine with fish with an ancient legend is anathema to those bozos.
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