A wave of serial crude bomb explosions and vehicle arson rattled Dhaka during the early hours of Monday, 16 November, sending shockwaves across several prominent neighbourhoods and high-security zones. Between 12:15 am and 2:30 am, unidentified assailants carried out hit-and-run attacks at eight separate locations spanning the northern, central, and southern parts of the capital.
Law enforcement officials suspect that activists belonging to banned organisations and the activity-banned Awami League orchestrated the nocturnal disturbances to sow fear among city residents. According to multiple sources speaking to Asia Post, most of the perpetrators arrived on motorcycles, detonated the crude explosives, and fled before patrols could intercept them. In a notable departure from that pattern, however, investigators uncovered evidence pointing to an auto-rickshaw driver’s involvement in one of the night’s earliest incidents.
The disruption began at around 12:15 am on Mirpur Mazar Road. Witnesses reported that an auto-rickshaw driver hurled a crude bomb in front of Dhanshiri Hotel before speeding away into the quiet streets. Security sources noted that this marked the first recorded instance in recent days of an auto-rickshaw driver taking part in late-night bomb attacks. Asked about the blast, Sub-Inspector Shahidullah, duty officer at Darus Salam Police Station, said the station had not yet received formal confirmation of an explosion within its jurisdiction, though patrol teams were actively monitoring the streets.
Shortly after 12:30 am, the blasts shifted towards several sensitive administrative and commercial landmarks. Assailants detonated crude bombs outside the pocket gate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs compound and near the entrance of the Supreme Court, two of the capital’s most closely guarded areas. Around the same time, multiple explosions were heard at the approach to the Kalshi Flyover in Mirpur. Elsewhere during the night, miscreants also set off crude bombs in front of Hotel Radisson and outside the Jatiya Press Club.
Despite the proximity of the blasts to major state institutions, local police stations reported no immediate confirmation from the ground. Rasel Parvez, duty officer at Shahbagh Police Station, noted that officers were stationed at a regular checkpoint directly in front of the Supreme Court, adding that no reports of an explosion had reached them at that hour.
As the night wore on, the attacks escalated from crude explosives to targeted arson. At approximately 2:15 am, miscreants torched a truck parked adjacent to the Shyampur Police Outpost in the southern part of the city. Almost simultaneously, another group set fire to a stationary passenger bus beside the AGB Colony in Motijheel, leaving the vehicle ablaze in the dead of night.
The coordinated pace of the incidents—stretching from Mirpur and the airport road corridor down to Motijheel and Shyampur within just over two hours—has heightened anxiety among night-time commuters and residents, prompting renewed scrutiny of late-night security patrolling across the metropolis.
