Dhaka, July 04: Suspected Maoist rebels gunned down and killed two police officers in a crowded village market in southwestern Bangladesh and threw them into a nearby river, police said today. The bodies of Shamsul Huq and Abu Bakar were recovered from Rupsa river after the shootings yesterday in Bamondanga market in Khulna district, 135 kilometers southeast of the capital, Dhaka.
About a dozen gunmen were involved in the attack and fled on motorcycles, said the area's senior police official, Aziz Sarkar.
Sarkar blamed the violence on the Purbo Bangla Communist Party, or PBCP, an outlawed Maoist group that campaigns for armed revolution to establish communism in Bangladesh.
Huq, one of the victims, led a police raid on a rebel hide-out in Khulna last week and arrested a PBCP leader, Zinnat Ali.
Maoist rebels operate in the country's rural areas, where they often extort wealthy villagers for money to fund their campaign. The rebels have little popular support.
Bureau Report