UK envoy hurt in Bangladesh blast

A bomb in the north-eastern Bangladeshi town of Sylhet has wounded many people, among them the British high commissioner, police say.
The British High Commission confirmed that Anwar Choudhury was among casualties, but had no more details.

Local reports say he is receiving treatment in hospital for leg injuries.

It is unclear who is behind the blast, which took place at a Muslim saint's shrine. A bomb at the same shrine earlier this year killed three people.

The Bangladeshi-born Mr Choudhury only took up his post in the country last week.

His family is originally from the Sylhet region and his visit to the mosque was widely publicised.

A doctor at the Sylhet Medical College Hospital told the Reuters news agency: "The high commissioner is being treated for splinters in his legs below the knees but his condition is not serious."

The Associated Press agency said an army helicopter had been sent to bring Mr Choudhury back to Dhaka.

In an attack on the shrine in January three people were killed by an explosion during a religious gathering.

No one has been arrested for that bombing, but Islamic extremists have been widely blamed.

Comment: A disconcerting development. Though it is too early to know who were responsible for this vicious attack on UK's high commissioner, perhaps it is not too far fetched to observe that in recent years, there are reports of increasing activities of fundamentalist elements in Bangladesh. Only yesterday The Daily Star reported a horrible news on killings of communist party activists in north west Bangladesh by a militant Islamic group led by a mysterious person called "Bangla Bhai". Here is the relevant information from that news:

In a show of cruelty beyond imagination, the Bangla Bhai outfit yesterday openly bludgeoned to death three alleged outlaws in an outlying village in Naogaon after hours of overnight announcement by loudspeaker of slaughter.

The morning shock came as villagers found one of the bodies hanging upside down from a roadside tree in Bamongram village in Nandigram upazila of Bogra, not far away from the northwestern district of Naogaon.

The rest were not found until 7:00pm although the militant operatives of Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) led by dreaded operations commander Bangla Bhai boasted that they had also met the same fate.

Police denied the latest episode of vigilante action despite repeated announcement of the lynching by loudspeaker and discovery of the body.

The rough justice of the Islamist outfit, blamed for killing at least eight outlaws including yesterday's three since April 1, underlines the jungle rule in the northwest.

Comment: These two incidents in most likelihood are not related considering the locations of these events. However, there are alarming signs in the recent years for the rise of extremist elements, that even are putting enormous pressure on the Bangladesh government to take extreme positions, in many cases favoring the fundamentalist's uncompromising stance. Banning the publications of Ahmadiyya Muslims is one example.

The only way that Bangladesh government can take effective measure is to implement non-partisan measure, applying the already existing laws of the nation, and putting these thugs and extremists behind the prison bar where they belong.