Bombings batter Bangladesh B.O.
Some cinema halls shuttered
"Audience numbers have fallen and in some areas cinema halls have been shut for security reasons," Saiful Islam Chowdhury, president of the Bangladesh Motion Picture Exhibitors Assn., said Tuesday in the capital, Dhaka.
He said the film industry traditionally raked in big cash bonuses during the Eid al-Fitr holiday season, the biggest annual Muslim festival, but the bombings had depressed B.O. takings.
The blasts were in crowded cinemas in the northern town of Mymensingh, 70 miles from Dhaka. No one has claimed responsibility.
Police on Sunday defused another bomb in a cinema in the nearby town of Gaibandha, while late Monday police said several crude bombs were defused on the lawns of Dhaka's high court.
Cinemas in Mymensingh were immediately shut and a general bomb alert sounded for hundreds of movie theaters across the country.
As part of the security clamp-down, police Monday arrested a man carrying a loaded gun as he tried to enter a Dhaka cinema.
"The daily number of spectators has fallen from 900 to about 200 (in each cinema)," Chowdhury said, adding that all 35 cinemas in the Dhaka are facing similar problems.
The Bangladesh Motion Picture Exhibitors Assn. has bought 218 films, each costing at least 10 million taka ($170,000), this year -- mainly Bollywood fare -- and now is worried about not getting any return, let alone profit, on their investment, he said.
