Received terror threats on Pahela Baishakh celebrations, PM Hasina says

Law-enforcement agencies had intelligence of security threats to the Bangla New Year celebrations, but they did not make it public to avoid panic, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said.

Her comments came on Saturday while addressing a ceremony to inaugurate a 20-storey residential building for Supreme Court judges in Dhaka's Kakrail.

"We had received intelligence about several threats, but did not make it public then," the prime minister said as she thanked law-enforcement agencies for the security of Pahela Baishakh celebrations.

Hasina expressed her anxiety over the threats. “I was worried all the time.”

However, before the celebrations, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan and top police officers said they saw no signs of terror threats.

In the hours to the Pahela Baishakh, tensions ran deep as radical Islamists demanded a ban to the celebrations.

Concerns deepened after the government executed top militant leader Mufti Hannan and two of his aides on Wednesday for killing three in an attack on the then British high commissioner Anwar Choudhury in Sylhet in 2004.

Hannan was also sentenced to death for the killing of 10 people in a bomb attack on the main Pahela Baishakh event, Chhayanaut's programme at Ramna Batamul in 2001.

The law enforcers put in place unprecedented security measures this year. Many were irked by the restrictions on carrying handbags during the celebrations. The ruling Awami League cancelled its procession this year citing public suffering as the reason.