B'desh police check Qaeda links to railway blasts

Dhaka, May 2: Commuters flooded back to Bangladesh railway stations today, a day after simultaneous bomb blasts rocked three terminals and raised a security alarm across the country.

Police said they believed the blasts in Dhaka, Chittagong and northeastern Sylhet, which slightly injured a rickshaw puller, were not intended to kill anybody but to announce the presence of an Islamist group in the country.

Two metal sheets found at the bomb sites in Dhaka and Chittagong port city were scribbled with militant slogans. One sheet was signed ''al Qaeda network'' while the other was signed ''Zadid (new) al Qaeda,'' police said.

In the slogans, written in Bangla language, the militants threatened to blow up non-government organisations unless they pronounced Prophet Hazrat Mohammad as the ''world's superman'' and also warned the small Ahmadiyya Muslim sect of similar consequences.

The Ahmadiyyas refuse to accept the Prophet Mohammad as Islam's final prophet, contrary to beliefs of the majority Sunni Muslims, and claim their founder to be a prophet and messiah.

''We are investigating, but have no immediate clue to confirm that the blasts had any link whatsoever with the al Qaeda,'' a police detective said. ''But we are trying to dig deeper for more details.'' Security has been tightened across the country following yesterday's blasts, police said.

A traffic officer at Dhaka's Kamalapur terminal said today: ''We are having normal business here today, with people streaming in and out of trains.'' Intelligence officials had earlier told authorities that Islamist militants were regrouping under different names after six militant leaders were hanged in March.

The six included Shayek Abdur Rahman and Siddikul Islam Bangla Bhai, who led the outlawed groups Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, respectively.

Both groups pursued a common goal to introduce sharia law in mainly Muslim democratic Bangladesh.

Their followers had kept a low profile after the country's army-backed interim government imposed a state of emergency in January and cancelled scheduled elections. The six Islamists were executed following trial by special courts.

Police chief Nur Mohammad told reporters last evening authorities are taking the terminal blasts ''quite seriously'' as they demonstrated that militants were active again.

Intelligence officials have told authorities militants were using half a dozen or more new names to detract attention, but are mostly followers of Shayek Rahman and Bangla Bhai.

Some of the executed Islamists were trained in Afghanistan and worked for al Qaeda before launching their Bangladesh campaign, intelligence sources said.

Reuters>