Bangladesh detains bomb suspects

Police in Bangladesh have arrested four people in connection with bomb blasts outside two busy cinemas in the northern town of Sylhet.

A boy was killed and 15 other people injured in the explosions, which took place on Thursday night.

Security has been tightened in all public places in the town.

There have been a number of bombings in Sylhet in recent months - in May Britain's High Commissioner was injured in an attack on a Muslim shrine.

Third bomb

The two bombs went off in front of the two cinemas just five minutes apart on a busy Thursday night, when many people head to the cinema ahead of the weekend.

Police said the first explosion took place at the ticket counter of the Monica cinema, injuring two people.

Five minutes later, a second blast at the main gate of Rangmahal cinema - about four kilometres away - killed one small boy and left several others injured.

Officials say plastic explosives planted in another cinema did not explode.

One of the injured, who is suspected to have been carrying the explosives, was arrested at the scene of the first explosion. He is being questioned by police.

Three others were detained later.

Cases unsolved

These is not the first time that cinema halls in Bangladesh have been targeted. In December 2002, bomb blasts in four cinemas in northern Mymensingh town killed 18 people.

Another explosion in a cinema in western Satkhira in the same year left three people killed.

The Sylhet cinema explosions came just two months after a bomb attack on a Muslim shrine in the town, which killed three people. British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury was among those injured.

Incidents of bomb explosions are on the rise in Bangladesh with more than 100 people dying in such attacks in the past five years.

But most of the cases remain unsolved with the police having few leads on who carried out the attacks or their motives.