Burma's 'Buddhist Bin Laden' unharmed in bomb attack

A Buddhist monk of Burma, who is famously known as 'the Buddhist Bin Laden', was left unharmed during a bomb blast on the outskirts of Mandalay on Sunday.

The Independent News reports that a home-made bomb went off inside a parked car and Wirathu, who was standing 12 metres away, was unharmed.

Wirathu is the man behind an anti-Muslim movement in Burma called 969 which aims to persuade Buddhists to shun companies owned or operated by Muslims in order to save their religion.

According to the report, the subsequent attacks on the Muslim minority have taken at least 250 lives in the past year, and made 140,000 people homeless.

Wirathu had earlier spent time in jail for his role in the Saffron Revolution in 2007, the report added.

Wirathu has described the blast as the work of Islamic extremists.