Bangladesh arrested dozens of Opposition activists on Sunday after bombs ripped through cinemas in a northern town killing at least 20 people and wounding about 300 as families celebrated the end of Ramadan.The four cinemas in Mymenshingh town, 150 km north of the capital Dhaka, were packed with nearly 2,000 men, women and children when the bomb exploded. The three-day Id al-Fitr festival, which marks the end of the fasting month, is one of the most important celebrations of the year in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.Dulal Akhand, a police officer in Mymenshingh, said 57 people, many in critical condition, were being treated in hospitals.Police said 21 people, including some students, had been arrested in Mymensingh and were being interrogated. In Dhaka, police took 39 members of the Opposition Awami League Party into custody, including a former minister.‘‘A total of 39 people, including former state minister Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Dhaka University teacher Muntasir Mamun and some other leaders of the Awami League were arrested on Saturday night,’’ an officer of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police said.Police said the people picked up in Dhaka were held for suspicious activities and were not directly linked to the Mymenshingh blasts, although they were arrested within hours of the explosions. Dhaka police gave no other details. Interior minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury said the attacks could be the work of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network or some other terror group and he had ordered a nationwide security alert.‘‘Police suspect Al Qaeda or any other terror groups are behind the bomb blasts,’’ Chowdhury said.But Chowdhury added that the government’s political opponents might have been behind the explosions in a bid to try to destabilise the administration.‘‘The situation is tense, but under control. Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia is due here later today to visit the blast victims,’’ Akhand said. ‘‘Army troops are patrolling the town. They are checking every passing vehicle,’’ he addedAn Indian newspaper reported last month that Indian intelligence agencies believed bin Laden’s deputy, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, was in hiding in Bangladesh but the government had dismissed the report. The newspaper had added that Bangladesh had become a haven for bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network and Zawahiri had been in Bangladesh since September.
