Four killed as terror strikes Bangladesh on Eid

Dhaka, July 7

Islamist militants carrying bombs and machetes launched a deadly attack on Bangladesh's biggest Eid gathering, killing four persons, including two policemen and a Hindu woman, nearly a week after 22 people were slaughtered in the country's worst terror attack.

Read: Dentist, singer and MBA identified in IS video threatening more attacks

Bombs exploded near the country’s biggest Eid gathering in Sholakia in northern Kishoreganj district where at least 200,000 people had gathered, police said.

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Police said one constable was dead and at least 13 others were injured. A second policeman later succumbed to his wounds on way to hospital in neighbouring Mymensingh.

Read: NSG team to travel to Bangladesh, to study terror strikes

Jharna Rani Bhoumik, a housewife, was also killed as she was hit by a stray bullet that penetrated her hut, officials said.

One suspected attacker was also killed in the exchange of fire with police at the blast site as roads in the area were cordoned off.

Police said that two of the attackers have been held while media reported the arrest of three persons.

Machetes were seized from the suspected assailants.

Local reports said six to seven people led the attack with sharp weapons on policemen when they were frisking people entering the Eidgah ground.

Kishoreganj ASP Obaidul Hasan said the blasts spread panic among thousands who were beginning to gather near the ground, but the prayers were not disrupted, bdnews24.com reported.

“That was probably a crude bomb. The facts are still unclear,” he said.

Police did not reveal the identities of the arrested attackers. No group has claimed responsibility for today's attack.

The incident comes close on the heels of last week's deadly attacks on a cafe in Dhaka in which 22 people, including a 19-year-old Indian girl, were brutally slaughtered by Islamic State militants.

The Islamic State (IS) terror group yesterday issued a new chilling video warning the Bangladesh government of more attacks in the country and across the world until Shariah law is established globally, saying last week's gruesome attack here was just "a glimpse".

The video message believed to be issued from Raqqa, the stronghold of the terror group in strife-torn Syria was released on YouTube.

Islamist gunmen stormed a popular restaurant in Dhaka's posh diplomatic enclave late on Friday killing 22 people, most of them foreigners from Italy, Japan, India and the US in an attack claimed by the Islamic State.

The IS video has gone viral on social media among Bangladeshis still recovering from the shock of the brutal slaughter of 20 hostages and two police officers in Dhaka.

'We will face them'

The site of the attack is called Sholakia Eidgah, a large field where hundreds of thousands of people gathered almost every year since the early 19th century to pray on the occasion of Eid, according to media.

Police had increased security at the site after Friday's attack in Dhaka, the Independent newspaper of Bangladesh said.

A religious leader preparing to attend the prayer service when the attack took place, Farid-uddin Masud, had recently denounced militancy and led a drive to collect signatures condemning it as un-Islamic.

"It is likely that they targeted me as I have received previous threats," he said by telephone. "It is their strategy to create panic."

The government says it will not be cowed by the violence.

"Their aim is not to establish Islamic ideology but to tarnish the image of the government and the country," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said.

"We will face them with all our might."  — Agencies