Blast at Radical Myanmar Monk Event Injures 5

A small blast near an event by a radical Myanmar monk who stands accused of inflaming Buddhist-Muslim tensions has left five people injured in Mandalay, police said Monday.

"The scene was about 100 yards (90 meters) away from the preaching event," said an officer from police headquarters in the capital Naypyidaw who asked not to be named.

Police said five people -- a Buddhist child novice monk, three women and one man -- were slightly injured in the blast, which occurred in a residential area of Myanmar's second largest city on Sunday evening.

"We do not know the cause of the blast yet and are still investigating. But we think it could be from a homemade device," the officer told Agence France Presse.

He added that a vehicle where the blast was thought to have originated was slightly damaged.

The cleric Wirathu confirmed the incident and blamed "the minority" linked to an article in Time magazine, which highlighted his anti-Muslim sermons as a key factor in inciting a wave of deadly religious violence this year.

Several episodes of unrest -- mainly targeting Muslims -- have exposed deep rifts in the Buddhist-majority country and cast a shadow over widely praised political reforms since military rule ended two years ago.

Myanmar in June banned the controversial Time magazine cover story on Buddhist-Muslim unrest, which featured a picture of Wirathu and the caption 'The Face of Buddhist Terror'.

The article, one of a host of stories by the international media that have caused consternation in Myanmar, met with anger on social media sites and its author, Time East Asia Correspondent Hannah Beech, has been singled out for personal criticism.

In an article on his Facebook page entitled "This is the beginning of the cultural acts of the minority loved by Hannah Beech", Wirathu said the blast had injured audience members.

The monk has been the focus of scrutiny after emerging at the forefront of a nationalistic group calling for the boycott of Muslim businesses by Buddhists. He has recently campaigned for restrictions on marriages between Buddhist women and men from other faiths.

In March at least 44 people were killed in sectarian strife in central Myanmar, with thousands of people left homeless after Buddhist mobs set whole Muslim neighborhoods ablaze. In one area alone, at least 20 pupils and four teachers from a Muslim madrassa were hacked to death.

Communal unrest last year in the western state of Rakhine left about 200 people dead and up to 140,000 displaced, mainly Rohingya Muslims.

Some robed monks have taken part in the clashes.