Press Trust of India
Dhaka, June 5: A Christian businessman was Sunday hacked to death by unidentified machete-wielding men near a church in Bangladesh, hours after the wife of a top anti-terror police officer was shot dead by religious extremists in the Muslim-majority nation which has seen a string of brutal attacks on minorities and secular activists by Islamists. Sunil Gomes, 65, was found dead inside his grocery shop at around midday Sunday in northwestern Natore district, police superintendent Shyamal Mukherjee said. The assailants fled the scene immediately after hacking Gomes to death inside his shop at the commercial hub near a church at Banpara village at the outskirts of the district town, he said.
“We are yet to know the details of the incident but our men are gathering information about the murder,” Mukherjee said. The motive behind Gomes’ murder was not known immediately, police said. Meanwhile, in a separate incident, the wife of a top Bangladeshi police officer who carried out several raids against militants was stabbed and shot dead by three bike-borne assailants in front of her minor son in the port city of Chittagong. Mahmuda Aktar, 33, was targeted by the gunmen at around 6:45 am (local time) while she was on her way to drop her six-year-old son to school in Chittagong, about 275 kilometres from here.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said police suspect religious extremists were behind the murder. Kamal, who was in the port city at the time of the murder, told reporters that the Islamists likely to have killed Babul’s wife as he played a key-role in a major campaign against JMB. She was the wife of Superintendent of Police Babul Aktar.
