A police officer’s wife and a Christian grocer were killed in daring attacks by unknown assailants in Chittagong and Natore districts on Sunday.
Mahmuda Khanam, 33, wife of police super Babul Akhter and grocer Sunil Gomej, 60, are the latest victims of the recent spate of attacks where involvement of religious extremists is widely suspected. Unidentified miscreants gunned down Mahmuda Khanam at Chittagong city’s GEC intersection in the morning. Dhaka, UNB News Agency Reported.
Babul, a resident of Nasirabad Housing Area, was promoted as police super just last month and attached to the Police Headquarters in Dhaka. Earlier, he was additional deputy commissioner of Chittagong Metropolitan Police.
Mohiuddin Mahmud, officer-in-charge of Panchlaish Police Station, said a gang of three miscreants riding a motorcycle hit Mahmuda with their bike as she went there to drop her son, Mahir Akhter, 7, for a bus to the Chittagong Cantonment Public School and College around 7.15am.
As Mahmuda fell down after having hit by the bike, the gunmen opened fire on her, leaving her dead on the spot.Condemning the murder, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said militants might have killed police officer Babul Akhter’s wife having failed to kill him.Iqbal Bahar, police commissioner of Chittagong Metropolitan Police, said they are conducting drives in the city and trying to arrest the killers.
“We’re also investigating whether there was any militant link in the incident,” added the CMP commissioner.CMP deputy commissioner Paritosh Ghosh said the CCTV footage of the killing incident has been collected where it was seen that three assailants killed Mahmuda and then fled.
Meanwhile, Sunil Gomej, 60, a grocer and a former employee of Banpara Christian Missionary, was hacked to death by unidentified assailants at Banpara Christian Palli in Baraigram upazila of Natore on Sunday noon.
Quoting local people, police said a gang of miscreants swooped on the shop of Sunil Gomej and hacked him indiscriminately at noon, leaving him dead on the spot, said Officer-in-charge of Baraigram Police Station Maniruzzaman.
Informed, police recovered the body and sent it to Natore sadar hospital morgue for an autopsy.Sunil had long been living at the Christian Palli with his wife.Munshi Shahab Uddin, additional superintendent of Natore Police, said, “I think the murder has no link with the recent killings occurred across the country”.
However, CID inspector Sekendar Ali said the murder incident shows some similarities with the killings carried out by militants. But there might be another reason behind the killing, he said.Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Oikya Parishad blocked Natore-Pabna highway at Bonpara Bazar around 5 pm, protesting the murder and demanding the arrest of the killers involved in the incident by seven days, disrupting traffic on the road for half an hour.
Meanwhile, a team of Detective Branch (DB) of police detained a man, Sabuj Ali, from the village in the evening for interrogation, said DB officer-in-charge Abdul Hai.
