A suspected improvised explosive device (IED) concealed inside a pressure cooker has been recovered and defused after being found outside a tea stall in Ashulia on the outskirts of Dhaka.
The device had been left in a bag outside the shop hours before it was discovered, police said.
Ashulia Police chief Md Sohel Rana said officers recovered the device on Friday before the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) bomb disposal unit arrived and defused it.
A bomb disposal officer said the pressure cooker had been packed with explosive material and a large number of ball bearings, making it a “powerful” device.
According to the officer, a man arrived at the tea stall in Charabag shortly after midnight on Thursday and asked the shopkeeper to break a Tk 500 note.
After being told there was no change, he reportedly asked to leave his bag there for a short time before walking away.
More than an hour later, people at the tea stall became suspicious, opened the bag and found a pressure cooker wrapped in Scotch tape. They then alerted police.
The bomb disposal unit received the call around 1am and reached the scene about 3am, the officer said.
“Members of the squad arrived at the scene around 3am to retrieve the bomb. Early Friday morning, experts carried out a controlled explosion after digging a pit in an adjacent vacant field and stacking sandbags around it."
Despite precautionary measures, the blast's vibrations caused a nearby boundary wall to collapse, the bomb disposal official said.
The official added that laboratory tests would determine the type of chemical explosive used.
On Jul 24, police recovered and defused a pipe bomb hidden inside an abandoned umbrella beneath the Motijheel metro station on the route of the Hindu Rath Jatra procession.