Police officer hacked to death in Bangladesh

Dhaka: A police officer was stabbed to death and four others were injured on Wednesday by unidentified attackers in Bangladesh, days after a publisher was murdered and two bloggers attacked in similar attacks.

Police Constable Mukul Hossain was killed and another left critically injured after being attacked on duty by a group of seven to eight motorcycle-borne people on the Dhaka-Tangail Highway at Ashulia's Barhaiparha. Before fleeing, they also fired gunshots in the air apparently to create panic.

"The sudden attack came as the members of the Industrial Police Unit were just setting up a makeshift check post at the Ashulia area on the Dhaka-Tangail highway," an official of Ashulia police station told PTI.

"The locals rushed the two policemen to a private clinic from where our ambulance took them to Enam Medical College Hospital in Savar... Constable Mukul died there and the other constable Nur Alam is being treated with critical injury," said Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Nazmul Hasan Kiron.

He said the attackers fled soon after the attack.

"There were seven or eight of them," Kiron said.

The injured policemen were rushed to Enam Medical College and Hospital where he died while under treatment.

Savar Industrial Police's Deputy Director Kausar Shikder said another constable Nur-e-Alam Siddique was in critical condition. Three other constables injured in the attack have been given first aid, he added.

The identity of the attackers or their possible motive is yet to be ascertained, police said.

Bangladesh has seen a series of such attacks in the recent past.

Today's attack comes four days after two publishing houses in Dhaka were attacked by men with sharp weapons.

Jagriti Prokashony publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan was murdered while 'Suddhaswar' publisher Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury Tutul was seriously injured along with writer Ranadipam Basu and blogger Tarek Rahim in the attacks.

On the night of October 22, an assistant sub-inspector was stabbed to death at a check post in Dhaka's Gabtoli.

In the early hours of October 24, a Shia gathering was bombed in Old Dhaka, killing 2 people and injuring over 100 others.