Bomb attack on Khulna temple
Cop hurt, Hindu festival stops
Staff Correspondent, Khulna
Unnamed attackers exploded a bomb inside the Arya Dharmasava Temple in a drive-by attack in Khulna city late Thursday night, grievously injuring a police constable on duty and prompting a halt to a Hindu festival. Witnesses said a gang of two on a motorbike tossed the bomb into the temple at 11:00pm, where over 200 devotees were celebrating Ratha Jatra on the sixth day of the eight-day Hindu chariot festival, blasting a six-inch hole in the floor. Men and women hurried out of the temple barefoot, screaming in panic as the bomb exploded with a huge bang. The incident, the latest in a series of drive-by bomb attacks in the southwestern divisional headquarters dubbed as the valley of death, prompted businesspeople to shut their businesses and traffic to go off roads. Police quoted two roadside shopkeepers as saying the bomb was hurled by a young man who was riding the motorbike with another. Deputy Commissioner (South) Akbar Ali of Khulna Metropolitan Police linked the attackers to an unnamed extremist outfit. Constable Shafiqul Islam, 27, who was on duty at the temple, was admitted to the police hospital in the city with severe facial injuries from splinter. The temple authorities announced a three-day demonstration, including a rally, hoisting of black flags in temples in Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira and handover of memoranda to the police commissioner and the deputy commissioner in Khulna on June 27. Local leaders of Khulna Puja Udjapan Parishad expressed concern at the first-ever bomb attack on a temple in Khulna city. Shyamal Kumar Halder, central vice-president of Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Oikya Parishad, termed the incident as an act of sabotage and demanded arrest of the attackers. Leaders of Khulna district and city Awami League condemned the incident in a joint press statement. AL lawmaker Talukder Abdul Khaleque, Khulna district AL President Sheikh Harunur Rashid, former AL whip Mostafa Rashidi Shuja and city AL General Secretary Mizanur Rahman in separate statements blamed the attack on the adherents of the ruling BNP-Jamaat coalition. Police found a hand bomb on Thursday midnight at Jailkhana Ferry Ghat, an hour after the bomb attack on the temple, a police official said. Security was tightened in and around all temples in the city.
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