Security beefed up after militant group in Bangladesh threatens to bomb book fair

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – Security was increased in and around the venue of a national book fair in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka on Friday after a banned extremist group threatened to bomb the event, police and official sources said on Friday.

“We received a complaint from the Bangla Academy about a bomb threat on Thursday,” officer Nur Mohammad from Shahbagh police station told Anadolu.

He added that security measures in and around the Amar Ekushey Book Fair venue have been beefed up and that all police units, including the Detective Branch and the Rapid Action Battalion, are working to locate the member of the militant group who issued the threat.

The month-long book fair, which began on February 1, 2023, will run through the end of this month. This is the most popular and well-attended annual event in the South Asian country, and it has become a part of Bengali culture.

The Bangla Academy is an autonomous institution funded by the Bangladesh government to promote the Bengali language, literature, and culture. It organizes the Amar Ekushey Book Fair every year to commemorate the Language Martyrs and the historic Language Movement of 1952.

Moulana Saiful Islam, claiming to be a member of the militant group Ansar al-Islam, threatened the Director General of the Bangla Academy, Mohammad Nurul Huda, with a bomb attack at the book fair in protest against some anti-Islamic works in the country.

Ansar al Islam is identified as the Bangladeshi wing of al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent and is suspected of being responsible for a sequence of murders of secular bloggers in the country for allegedly anti-Islamic and derogatory posts about Islam and Prophet Muhammad.

However, the police officer said “we are not sure whether the letter was originally sent by the Ansar al-Islam or not. We’re looking into it.”

The director general of the Bangla Academy told Anadolu that the militant group is agitated against the alleged prostitution business taking place in some hotels in the city with purported police support.

“We are waiting for a suitable opportunity to blow up the police headquarters as despite repeated appeals to the police they are not taking any measures against those anti-Islamic activities. Now we will attack the book fair as the writers do not write against prostitution and unethical works,” he said, citing the letter’s content.

He added that they, along with police, have also taken precautionary steps at the fairgrounds to avert any untoward incidents.