British Envoy Hurt in Blast at Shrine in Bangladesh

Britain's high commissioner to Bangladesh was among 50 people injured yesterday when a bomb exploded at a Muslim shrine in the north-east of the country, killing two people.

Anwar Choudhury, the newly appointed high commissioner, and his bodyguard were praying at a shrine in Sylhet when the bomb went off, a police officer told Reuters.

Diplomatic sources said Mr Choudhury's injuries were not grave but his bodyguard, a Bangladeshi policeman, had sustained much more serious injuries.

Mr Choudhury, who was born in Bangladesh, was visiting the shrine as part of a three-day trip to his home district, Sunamganj, days after taking up his post.

Seen as a high-flying civil servant who became a policy director in the Cabinet Office in 2000, Mr Choudhury is the first senior high commissioner from an ethnic minority background.

The 44-year-old father of two had previously been responsible for the development of internet technologies for the government. He came to Britain as a child.

Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, said he was "deeply shocked" by the bombing and extended his sympathies to "all the victims and their families".

Khaleda Zia, the Bangladeshi prime minister, said her government would take "all steps" to catch those responsible and bring them to justice.

The explosion, which some reports said had been caused by a bomb thrown into a crowd, occurred as Mr Choudhury, one of the highest ranking Muslims in the Foreign Office, left the mosque attached to the shrine at the end of Friday prayers. No one claimed responsibility.

"This is a hell of a scene with dozens of injured lying in the emergency ward and on the corridors," a reporter at the nearby Sylhet Medical College hospital said.

About 50 injured people were taken to the hospital, according to a doctor, Abdus Salam.

"The high commissioner is being treated for splinters in his legs below the knees but his condition is not serious," he told Reuters. Mr Choudhury was later flown to the capital, Dhaka, for further treatment.

Diplomatic sources said it was too early to say who had been responsible for the attack.

A blast at the same shrine of the saint Hazrat Shahjalal in January killed three people. It is not clear whether the high commissioner had been "deliberately targeted or caught up in some local feud", one source said. "It is a part of the world where there is quite a lot of militancy."

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "I don't think anybody is ruling anything in or out at this stage." Asked whether the attack would prompt a security review, he said: "If there are lessons to be learned from this incident we will learn them."

There have been worries about the rise of Islamist militants in Bangladesh, something Dhaka denies is a problem.

A professor was stabbed recently after he described fundamentalists as "a major problem of our society".

But the main source for reports of terrorism is India, which sees its neighbour as a threat to regional security.

Praveen Kumar, a Delhi-based security analyst, wrote: "There are speculations of the use of north-east Indian territory by Islamist groups as a transit to infiltrate into Jammu and Kashmir."

This is disputed by Dhaka which points to remarks last year by Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, who praised the country for being an "elegant, compelling and greatly needed voice of moderation".