Unidentified assailants kill policeman in Bangladesh

Unidentified assailants today stabbed to death a policeman and wounded another in a surprise attack on a security check post at suburban Ashulia, days after suspected Islamists killed a publisher and injured three others in the Bangladeshi capital.
"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 station's duty officer said seven or eight assailants on three motorbikes appeared at the scene and indiscriminately stabbed the on duty policemen and fired gunshots in the air apparently to create a sense of panic and then fled.

Locals told TV channels that the policemen tried to halt the bikers when they came under the attack. The killers chased the two wounded policemen as they ran for safety to a nearby restaurant where the assailants stabbed them multiple times.
"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," police officer Nazmul Hassan said.
Savar industrial police's deputy director Kausar Shikder said three other constables were also injured in the attack and needed first aid at a local clinic.

The assault came four days after assailants carried out near simultaneous attacks on two publishing houses in Dhaka and hacked to death publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan, critically injured another Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury Tutul along with writer Ranadipam Basu and blogger Tarek Rahim.

Ansar Al Islam, also known as Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) later claimed responsibilities for the attacks calling themselves as Bangladesh branch of Al-Qaeda.
"There could be a link between the attacks, we will definitely investigate the possible links," a police spokesman told PTI.
On October 22 night, an assistant sub-inspector was stabbed to death at a Gabtoli gateway to the capital.