Moghbazar blast injures 5: Police suspects St Mary’s school was the target

At least five persons including a Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC) engineer have been injured in a suspicious blast on the sidewalk at Moghbazar wireless area on Tuesday. Police claimed the explosion was targeted and premeditatedly planted inside an English medium school's waste bin.

"Analysing CCTV footage and the circumstantial evidence, we can assume that explosives were put on that drum on purpose and the drum was inside the school premises. It might have been pre-planned and targeted," a Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) official, seeking anonymity, told The Business Standard.

"It was clearly a bomb explosion. However, we are quizzing the employees of the school and other CCTV footages, and we will surely identify the culprits who were behind the blast," the official added. 

The injured have been identified as a passerby Saidul Islam, 35, Abu Kalam, 25, Md Shaheen, 30, Md Tareq, 20 and Akilur Rahman, 16.

Among the injured, Saidul Islam is an engineer and used to work at Mogbazar Agrani apartment project and the rest are DPDC workers, who were piling sand while the blast took place.

All the injured are out of danger now, said Dhaka Medical College Hospital residential physician Alauddin. He also said that they have been kept in observation for now.

"They may get released on Tuesday night," he added.

A worker named Mohiuudin took the injured to the DMCH and said that they were piling sand on a road in front of Dhaka Community Medical College Hospital.

"All of a sudden we heard an explosion and the blast happened from a plastic waste bin. Later we could only see smoke coming out of the scene," he said.

"At least three of the workers and passer-by sustained broken glass injuries," added Mohiuddin. 

At least three CCTV footage obtained by The Business Standard shows that at around 9:39am the explosion occurred from inside a blue-coloured plastic waste drum and the same drum was kept at the footpath at 8:50am. The adjacent pharmacy and another shop were damaged after the explosion. 

Md Shahidullah, deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Ramna Division told The Business Standard, "We are looking into whether it was a crude bomb and if any other issue is linked with the incident."

According to the fire service, they received a call at around 9:45am about the blast and sent two units to the spot. They found that a plastic waste bin exploded from inside and the reason behind the explosion could not be determined as of filing this report.

Visiting the ST Mary international school, situated at 10A/1, Boro Moghbazar, the drum was seen kept at the adjacent footpath which is in front of the main gate of the school.

The blast took place just 21 minutes before the classes began.

DMP's Counter Terrorism officials have collected evidence to check whether it was an Improvised Explosive Device or like just any other manual bomb.    

Shilon Khan, principal of the St Mary's International School told The Business Standard that the plastic drum belonged to their school and in the morning a cleaner moved the plastic drum to a nearby footpath.

"We have roughly 130 students from Play group to O level and luckily the blast took place outside of the school premises and the classes did not begin by then. Our class time starts at 10pm every day, and the 'explosives' were inside the drum, which also belongs to the school. It might be pre-planned," he said.

The principal also said that they have provided CCTV footage and employees information to the law enforcement agencies and they are yet to file any lawsuit or initiate any legal proceedings.