FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

Wife of Anti-Militant Cop Brutally Murdered While Taking Son to School Bus in Bangladesh

The wife of a senior police official in Bangladesh known for battling Islamist militants was stabbed and shot to death in the port city of Chittagong.
Photo via EPA

The wife of a senior police official in Bangladesh known for battling Islamist militants was stabbed and shot to death on Sunday while she was on her way to put her young son onto a school bus near her home in the southeastern port city of Chittagong, police said.

Humayan Kabir, deputy police commissioner of Chittagong, said three assailants riding a motorcycle were responsible for the attack on 33-year-old Mahmuda Aktar.

Advertisement

"She was stabbed first. Then they shot her in the head three times," Kabir said.

Aktar's husband, police superintendent Babul Aktar, has played an important role in cracking down on militants in the region.

"Babul Aktar is an efficient police officer and played a key role in apprehending Islamists. They might have killed his wife because they failed to get him," Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters.

Aktar, who was recently posted to police headquarters in the capital, Dhaka, has busted several hideouts of the banned group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen. His team also arrested one of the group's leaders, who was later killed in a grenade blast during a police raid in October.

Related: Bangladesh Police Arrested an Islamist Militant for the Brutal Murder of Two Gay Rights Activists

In a separate incident on Sunday, machete-wielding assailants killed a Christian grocer.

Both attacks appeared to be the work of Islamist militants who have killed at least 30 people, including religious minorities, liberal bloggers and academics, since February last year, police said.

The government has launched a crackdown on militant groups who want to impose strict Islamic law on Bangladesh, whose population of 160 million are mostly moderate Muslims.

In Sunday's other killing, Sunil Gomes, a 60-year-old shopkeeper, was hacked to death in his store in the northern district of Natore, local police official Manirul Islam said.

Advertisement

The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for killing Gomes, according to the US-based monitoring service SITE.

IS and al-Qaeda have claimed responsibility for many killings in the past, but the government denies either group has a presence in Bangladesh and says home-grown radicals are responsible.

Follow VICE News on Twitter: @vicenews

Watch the VICE News documentary Sex, Slavery, and Drugs in Bangladesh: