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Blast outside Pranab’s hotel in Dhaka

Dhaka, March 4
A low intensity crude cocktail bomb exploded today outside a Dhaka hotel where President Pranab Mukherjee is staying during a general strike in Bangladesh called by the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami to protest the conviction of three of its top leaders for 1971 war crimes.

Mukherjee was inside the Sonargaon Pan-Pacific hotel when the incident took place around 2 pm at the SAARC Fountain, about 100 yards away from the hotel in central Dhaka, Deputy Commissioner of Police of Tejgaon Police Station Chowdhury Manzurul Kabir said.

Apoorva Hassan, the officer in-charge of Tejgaon police station, said two persons came on a motorcycle and hurled the bomb wrapped in a cap near the SAARC fountain. Kabir said there was no casualty in the incident.

He said there was no security threat to the President and the "cracker explosion" was just an attempt to enforce the 48-hour strike which entered the second day today.

Biplob Sarker, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Tejgaon), said Mukherjee's wife Suvra was at Gonobhaban, the official residence of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, during the blast.

Shortly before the explosion, Mukherjee returned to the hotel after accepting an honorary law degree from Dhaka University and visiting the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Museum in Dhanmondi in central part of the Bangladesh capital. Security has been further beefed up around the hotel. Kabir said law enforcers could not arrest anyone in connection with the incident but "we are trying to arrest the miscreants". He said, "it was a simple cracker explosion and there is nothing to worry". Such crackers are sometimes set off to enforce strikes in Bangladesh, Kabir added.

Asked about the security arrangement at the hotel, Sarker said the hotel where President Mukherjee is staying was secured properly.

Indian security officials sought to play down the explosion. In a statement, President Mukherjee's Press Secretary Venu Rajamony said: "Bangladesh authorities have informed that about an hour back a crude cocktail was found and they are investigating into the matter".

"Security officials have said this was a minor explosion," the statement said, adding that "bursting of such cocktails is common in Bangladesh during hartals and cannot be described as a bomb".

No one injured

• 2 pm: Two motorcyclists hurled a bomb wrapped in a cap near the SAARC Fountain, about 100 yards away from Sonargaon Pan-Pacific hotel
• The President was in the hotel while his wife was at the PM’s residence; no one was hurt
• The Tejgaon Police Station DCP called it a “cracker explosion” and said there was no security threat to the President
• The attack came on Day 2 of a two-day strike called by the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami to protest the conviction of three of its top leaders for 1971 war crimes