Blast outside Pranab's Dhaka hotel, no arrests yet

An explosion was reported outside a hotel in Dhaka where Indian President Pranab Mukherjee is staying as part of his diplomatic visit to the country, reports stated today. A homemade bomb was hurled outside the Sanargaon Pan-Pacific hotel in Dhaka by people protesting over a war crime tribunal’s verdict, PTI reported. No one was injured in the blast which took place around 2 pm, said Apoorva Hassan, the officer in-charge of Tejgaon police station. Two persons came on a motorcycle and hurled the bomb wrapped in a cap near the SAARC fountain, about 50 yards away from the hotel at a street intersection, he said. The two managed to escape and no one was arrested in this connection, he added. [caption id=“attachment_647505” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption] It wasn’t immediately known if the President Pranab Mukherjee was in the hotel at the time of the incident. There were no injuries reported from the explosion and security personnel had moved quickly to disperse the protesters, reports stated. The president arrived in Bangladesh on 3 March amidst a general strike called by fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami to protest the conviction of its three top leaders for 1971 war crimes. In an apparent fall-out of the domestic political standoff over the war crimes trial and consequent violence, opposition leader and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia cancelled her meeting with Mukherjee that was scheduled for tomorrow, casting a shadow on the President’s maiden foreign visit since taking over the highest constitutional post seven months ago. As Mukherjee began his visit, at least 14 people, including three women and a policeman, were killed fresh violence rocked the first day of the strike called by Jamaat in four districts of Bogra, Joypurhat, Jhenaidah and Rajshahi districts.