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| Bangladesh |
| Bombs explode at Bangla U. |
| 2007-07-18 |
| Three small bombs exploded at Dhaka University on Tuesday, causing panic but no casualties as students tried to call a strike over the arrest of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, police said. The crude home-made devices went off near the main administrative building on the university campus in the Bangladeshi capital, said local police chief Shahidul Islam. “We are investigating whether the explosion had any link to the strike called by the students’ wing of the Awami League to protest the arrest of their leader,” he added. Sheikh Hasina was arrested on Monday over an allegation of extortion. The arrest was the latest in scores of detentions by the military-backed emergency government as part of its months-long crackdown on corruption. Police said the Chhatra League, the student wing of Sheikh Hasina’s party, called a nationwide strike in the country’s educational institutions for Tuesday. Classes at Dhaka University, however, had not been affected, Islam said, adding that police had raided four campus residence halls ahead of the strike. Police on Monday fired rubber bullets and tear gas shells to disperse several hundred protesters as they tried to block the convoy escorting Sheikh Hasina from the courthouse to jail. Several hundred students chanting pro-Awami League slogans also defied an emergency ban on political gatherings and rallies in Sheikh Hasina’s southern hometown of Gopalganj on Monday, police officer Monir Hossain said. |
| Posted by:Fred |