IS claims responsibility of ‘bomb attacks’ near Dhaka police checkpoints
International terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS) has claimed the responsibility of placing bombs near two police checkpoints in Dhaka on Tuesday night, said a tweet by SITE Intelligence Group, an US company that tracks online activity of white supremacist and jihadist organisations.
The SITE Intelligence Group’s tweet reads, “IS claims bombing at two Bangladesh police checkpoints in Dhaka.”
On Tuesday night, police recovered the two bombs from areas near the Paltan and Khamar Bari police checkpoints and detonated those in a controlled environment early Wednesday.
The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit members of Dhaka Metropolitan Police used robot technology to recover and detonate the bomb at Khamar Bari checkpoint. They detonated it around 3:00 in the night.
In another incident, members of police became curious seeing a carton in front of Paltan police checkpoint around 10:15pm on Tuesday. The bomb disposal wing of police detonated that around 1:00am.
Regarding the IS’ claim about the bombs, DMP deputy commissioner (media and public relations) Md Masudur Rahman on Thursday told Prothom Alo that those involved with the incident will be known once the investigation is completed.
Police have collected the CCTV footages from Khamar Bari and Paltan areas. But, the footage of the Khamar Bari spot is hazy as the cameras there are far from the checkpoint, said police sources involved with the investigating process.
CTTC’s bomb disposal wing deputy commissioner Mohammad Sanwar Hossain said the bombs were Improvised Explosive Device (IED).
He, however, claimed the bombs were kept at those places just to spread panic.
Police department thinks the bombs might be kept there by local militant groups.
Police sources involved with the investigating process also said the latest bombs were different in nature than those used in the attacks in Malibagh and Gulistan.
CTTC’s special action group deputy commissioner Pralay Kumar Joardar told Prothom Alo that they have been sending the samples of bombs recovered from Khamar Bari and Paltan for chemical test at explosives department.
“We can comment only after getting the test results,” he said.
Earlier on 30 April, hand grenades were thrown at traffic police in city’s Gulistan.
Later, a pick-up van of police came under bomb attack in front of the Malibagh office of special Branch (SB) on 26 May.
IS claimed the responsibilities of both the incidents. But, the police department then said somebody is doing this to destabilise the country.
The law enforcement could not make any arrest in connection with the two incidents though the force has got test results of samples of bombs used in those attacks.