April 19, 2024 10:36 (IST)
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Four killed in blast at Bangladesh Eid prayers, gun battle continues
Dhaka, Jul 7 (IBNS) : In the second terror strike in Bangladesh in less than a week's time, at least four people, including a policeman, were killed and seven cops injured on Thursday after a bomb exploded near a mass Eid prayer congregation, reports said.
The audacious attack close to the congregation site where at least 200,000 people gathered on the holy festival day for Muslims took place at Kishoreganj, 100 km north of capital Dhaka, the scene of Friday's grisly attack on a popular cafe that left 22 people, mostly foreigners, dead.
A group of attackers reportedly threw crude bombs at a police team outside the prayer ground where a mass prayer for Eid was being held. Reports said firing is still on between security forces and the attackers.
Media reports quoted Bangladesh Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu as saying that the target of the attack was a police convoy patrolling the religious gathering.
"Up to nine police constables have been injured in the attack," Inu told CNN-News 18.
Police constable Jahurul Haque, 30, died in the blasts that occurred around 9 a.m., at Azimuddin School gate, a kilometre away from the prayer ground, bdnews24 reported.
However, The private Somoy TV that broadcast footage of a gunfight between police and a group of attackers, reported that the slain policeman had been hacked to death.
Tofazzal Hosain, who is the district's deputy police chief, has been quoted by the media as saying that several people had taken part in the attack and some had been armed with machetes -- a hallmark of recent Islamist killings in Bangladesh.
"They first threw a small bomb targeting police and then attacked them with machetes. Police retaliated by returning gunfire," he said.
The Islamic State, that claimed responsibility for Friday's terror attack on the Hole Artisan Cafe in Dhaka, on Wednesday issued a new video warning the Bangladesh government of more attacks in the country and across the world until Shariah law is established globally. It said last week’s gruesome attack on the cafe was just “a glimpse".
The video message believed to be issued from Raqqa, the stronghold of the terror group in Syria in Bangla language was first found in an IS-affiliate website and then released on YouTube.
However, there was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday's attack which came at a time when the country was trying to recover from the shock of the July 1 terror attack, the first of its kind in Bangladesh. A group of terrorists, all later identified as Bangladeshi youths, had butchered 22 hostages, including 20 foreigners, inside the cafe. Carrying out an operation, Bangladesh commandos shot dead six people, five of them identified as terrorists, and rescued 13 hostages.
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