Dhaka: A suspected teenage Islamist militant was killed in a shootout on Saturday. He was being held in custody in Bangladesh, police said, days after he allegedly hacked and critically wounded a Hindu lecturer in the latest attack on minority groups.
According to a report, Golam Faizullah Fahim, 19, who was in custody for questioning, was killed when police officers came under attack in a farmland area after taking him to a river in search of his Islamist associates, said Sarwar Hossain, police chief of Madaripur, 70 km south of the capital, Dhaka.
“Miscreants fired at the police van as we came near a jute farm. A gunfight ensued. After the gunfight we saw Fahim was shot and wounded. He died after we brought him to a hospital,” Hossain, told AFP.
Locals in Madaripur caught Fahim on Wednesday after he and two other suspected Islamists attacked and wounded 50-year-old mathematics lecturer Ripon Chakrabarti, a Hindu, police said.
More than 30 people have been killed by since early last year, ranging from atheist bloggers and liberal academics to gay rights campaigners, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups.
(With Agency input)
