Two more killed by extremists in Bangladesh

A Christian businessman was today 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 today in northwestern Notore district, police superintendent Shyamal Mukherjee told PTI over phone. The assailants fled the scene immediately after hacking to death Gomes 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 policemen are gathering information about the murder," Mukherjee said. The motive behind Gomes' murder was now 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 first-grader son to a nearby bus stop for school in Chittagong, about 275 kilometres from here. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said police suspect religious extremists were behind her 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, now posted at the police headquarters in Dhaka. Babul has led several raids on militant hideouts and investigated several terror-related cases as the additional deputy commissioner with the Detective Branch in Chittagong. Babul, who was promoted in April, played a key role in nabbing top militants and busting their hideouts in the southern coastal district. It was his investigations which led to the busting of a hideout of banned outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and arrest of its military wing chief Mohamed Javed in October last year. "Since Babul Aktar was in counter-terrorism, we suspect that militants are behind the murder of his wife," Detective Branch Deputy Commissioner Moktar Ahmed said. .