1 killed and 70 injured in Bangladesh explosion

At least one person was killed and almost 80 wounded Saturday in a bomb attack near the main imabargah in the Bangladeshi capital as thousands gathered for the annual Ashura procession, police said.

But Bangladesh’s interior minister told Reuters that no militants were involved and the blasts were not linked to an attack that killed 16 people at a Shi’ite procession in neighbouring Pakistan hours earlier.

Police said several homemade devices were thrown at thousands of worshippers gathering for the annual Ashura procession in the capital, Dhaka.

Monitoring group SITE intelligence reported that the Islamic State, a Sunni extremist group that controls large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, has claimed the credit of the attacks.

Kabir said that Saturday’s bomb attack could be part of the coordinated assault against Shia Muslims in other parts of the world, particularly in the Middle East.

The government again redirected blame toward locally banned Islamist groups and the main Islamist political party, accusing them of staging Saturday’s attack to destabilize the already fractious and impoverished nation.

Defying the attack, about 20,000 Shiites continued the procession in Dhaka, police and a press photographer said, cutting their bodies with knives and iron chains in a religious ritual.

However, the Bangladesh police earlier suspected the blasts were carried out by a domestic group to create instability.

Local police chief Aziz Ahmed said a 12-year-old boy died, and that the injured were being treated.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told reporters that two other bombs, that did not explode, were found at the site.

The Shia community observes the day annually marking the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

Many including girls were seen being taken to hospital by ambulance.

There is virtually no history of sectarian tension between Bangladesh’s Sunnis and its tiny minority of Shias.

Police and the authorities, however, have rejected the claim that IS was responsible, saying they do not believe the group is active in the country.