CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh // Extremists are suspected of the cold-blooded murder of a local official’s wife in front of her child on Sunday.
Mahmuda Akter, 33, was walking her son to a school bus-stop near their home in Chittagong when she was set upon by three unidentified men, who stabbed her and then shot her in the head. Her son witnessed the brutal attack on his mother and told police the men had pulled up beside her on a motorcycle.
The boy described how they first stabbed his mother and then held a pistol near her ear and shot her several times, said Moktar Hossain, deputy commissioner of Chittagong Metropolitan Police.
Prime suspects for the killing are the banned militant group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) “or local Islamist extremists,” Mr Hossain added.
Mahmuda was the wife of Superintendent Babul Akter, a senior antiterrorism officer in Chittagong who has led several high-profile operations in the city against JMB in recent months. In October 2015, Supt Akter and his team arrested top JMB militant Mohammad Javed and four others and seized a huge cache of explosives from their hideout. Javed was later killed by a grenade after leading police to another JMB hideout.
Supt Akter was recently posted to police headquarters in Dhaka and had been advised to step up his personal security after receiving threats.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the attack was revenge for Supt Akter’s role in tracking down militants.
“Babul Akter is a skilled and honest officer who played vital roles in combating militants. That’s why they killed his wife as they could not find him,” said Mr Khan.
Also on Sunday, a Christian grocer was hacked to death near a church in Bonpara, a village in north-west Bangladesh which is home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the country. Shafiqul Islam, deputy police chief of the surrounding Natore district, said the unidentified assailants had killed Sunil Gomes, 65, in his own shop.
Police would not speculate on the motive but the slaughter of both Mahmuda and Gomes are the latest in a series of attacks by extremists on religious minorities, secular activists or anyone the fanatics perceive as their opponents.
At least 28 people have been killed in attacks linked to militant groups since February 2015. Last week, a Hindu trader was hacked to death a few days after a homoeopathic doctor and a Buddhist monk were murdered. Last year in northern Bangladesh, an Italian-born Catholic priest was shot dead and attackers tried to kill a pastor by slitting his throat.
ISIL and Al Qaeda have claimed responsibility for most of the killings but the government denies either group has a presence in Bangladesh and instead blames home-grown radicals. The government has launched a security crackdown on those who want to impose strict Islamic law on Bangladesh, which has a population of 160 million of mostly moderate Muslims.
* Agence France-Presse
