Crude bombs explode outside Grameen bank headquarters in B’desh capital

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.