DHAKA, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Spouse of a senior Bangladesh police officer was shot dead Sunday by suspected militants in the country's southeastern seaport city Chittagong, some 242 southeast of capital Dhaka, police said.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) Commissioner Iqbal Bahar told journalists that "Miscreants shot Mahmuda Khanam Mitu, wife of Babul Akter, superintendent of police of Dhaka police headquarters, to death at about 7:00 a.m. (local time) on Sunday."
He said three assailants riding a motorcycle stabbed her first and then shot her when she fell down on the ground.
Mitu was walking along the street with her son to board a school bus in the morning. Mitu's son narrowly escaped the horrendous scene.
CMP Commissioner Iqbal Bahar said militants might have involved in the killing as Mitu's husband Babul Akter, who recently got promotion as superintendent of police and was posted at police headquarters in Dhaka, earlier as an additional deputy commissioner of detective branch in Chittagong, led many drives against militants.
Muslim-majority Bangladesh has been facing a surge in violent attacks in recent years in which many have been targeted. A number of secularist writers, bloggers and publishers in Bangladesh have been killed or seriously injured in attacks perpetrated by extremists since 2013.
Two persons including a writer of a LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) magazine were hacked to death in April by unidentified assailants in Bangladesh capital Dhaka.
Bangladeshi police said last month they had arrested a key suspect in connection with the murders of an editor and his friend, for which a "Bangladesh branch" of al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent claimed responsibility.
