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Dhaka (dpa) - Security forces in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka foiled an attempt by suspected Islamic militants to blow up a museum dedicated to the memory of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country's founding president, officials said Tuesday.
Intelligence officials said four former students of madrassas, the Islamic religious schools, were arrested overnight by the Rapid Action Battalion, a special anti-terror force, while they were allegedly planting two powerful explosives at a building of the Bangabandhu Museum.
Police guards at the museum in central Dhaka's quiet residential Dhanmondi neighbourhood claimed the devices were timed to explode during a ceremony marking the 31st anniversary of Mujibur's assassination by a group of rebel army officers.
The pro-Islamic rebels overthrew the secular Awami League government under Mujibur in 1975 and stripped the independence leader of his official title of Father of the Nation.
A media report Tuesday said Nurun Nabi, one of the detainees, disclosed to intelligence agencies that the failed bomb attack was also targeted at opposition supremo and Mujibur's daughter Sheikh Hasina.
The daily Ittefaq newspaper said Hasina was expected to attend the ceremony along with her younger sister Sheikh Rehana and other close family members of hers.
Police said the four detainees were living on the premises of a Shiite mosque in Dhaka's northern working class district of Mohammadpur.
The authorities failed to establish links between the detainees and the banned Jamiatul Mujahideen group, the majority of which leaders are in jail.
The Mujahideen which had shot to prominence through orchestrated bomb attacks last year declared to set up an Islamic state in Muslim dominated Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, thousands of people marched barefoot Tuesday carrying black banners of mourning to Mujibur's museum which has practically been turned unto a shrine for secular politicians, writers and cultural activists.
The opposition Awami League, Mujibur's own political party, also sponsored a token six-hour national general strike to protest against the cancellation by the governing Nationalist- Islamist coalition of a public holiday marking the anniversary of Mujibur's death.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
