The hoax bomb threat that forced the Dhaka Stock Exchange to close an hour earlier than schedule on Monday aimed to panic the market, an official said . Sources said someone called DSE office at 11:02am and said there was a bomb in the building that would explode sometime around 2:00pm. Trading of the market closed at about 1:15pm.

DSE senior vice-president Saiful Islam said that 'a certain quarter' was trying to upset the market, which has been seeing rises from the last week. "Dhaka Stock Exchange is one of the biggest organisations of the country...we think the move to create panic was aimed to unstable the [entire country]," he said.

A statement released by the DSE authorities said that no explosives or bombs had been found on the stock exchange premises. Authorities halted transactions at 1:15pm and then evacuated the building. A public relations official at the country's prime bourse told that the bomb threat was made over phone at about 11:15am by an anonymous caller who said that the building will be blown off by 2pm.

The caller said that a bomb had been kept inside the building, according to the official, who declined to be named. A high official of Dhaka Metropolitan Police had earlier said that the bomb threat was a hoax. "I was there until 2 pm...it's clear that it was an attempt to create panic," deputy commissioner of Motijheel Zone, Khandaker Mohiduddin told, "The matter is being investigated."

Law-enforcing agencies declared the DSE building and the annex building safe after searching the premises, the DSE said in the statement. It assured the investors and other stakeholders of necessary security arrangement and said there was no need to panic. Trading would continue as usual from 10am to 2pm on Tuesday. The indices on the Chittagong Stock Exchange slumped on the news of the bomb threat. Security has been scaled up at the port city bourse following the news, according to a CSE official who asked not to be named.