Bangladesh: Bomb panic at city high school

On the heels of a crippling nationwide general strike waged by opposition groups determined to oust the ruling Islamist-allied government comes this high school bomb scare out of Dhaka. From The New Nation:

The students and teachers of city’s Khilgaon High School panicked Sunday afternoon at sight of a bomb-like device set under the table of the assistant headmistress in the teachers’ common room.

School sources said a guardian first saw an envelop, which contained a bunch of handwritten letters, lying at a corner of the guardians’ waiting-room at about 1:15PM.

Out of curiosity she picked one letter out of the open envelop that cautioned that a number of time bombs were planted at different places in the school, including the room of the assistant headmistress.

“If Islamic education as per the Quran and Hadith was not introduced in the school within two days, the bombs would be detonated with remote-control,” says the note of warning and ultimatum from the banned Islamic outfit Harkatul Jihad, Khilgaon unit.

Witnesses said the discovery sent all in the sprawling campus into panic, during the rush after the end of one-shift examination and the entry of examinees for the second-shift exam.

After a hectic search, a container wrapped with a red tape and fitted to circuit, batteries and wires was found under the table of Aloka Ghosh, the assistant headmistress. A small tin-pot—like one that holds explosives for a time bomb—was also set to the device.

Headmaster Jasimuddin Bhuiyan claimed it as a “hoax”, saying that someone did it “to create panic among the students and guardians”.

Certainly, the good headmaster must be aware that the "someone" who perpetrated this "hoax" was not joking. Or is he?

Posted by at November 27, 2005 2:42 PM
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