Dhaka, Jun 5 (PTI) : A Christian businessman was on Sunday hacked to death by unidentified machete-wielding men near a church in Bangladesh, hours after the wife of a top anti- terror police officer was shot dead by religious extremists in the Muslim-majority nation which has seen a string of brutal attacks on minorities and secular activists by Islamists.

Sunil Gomes, 65, was found dead inside his grocery shop at around midday today in northwestern Notore district, police superintendent Shyamal Mukherjee told PTI over phone.

The assailants fled the scene immediately after hacking to death Gomes inside his shop at the commercial hub near a church at Banpara village at the outskirts of the district town, he said.

"We are yet to know the details of the incident but our policemen are gathering information about the murder," Mukherjee said.

The motive behind Gomes' murder was not known immediately, police said.

Meanwhile, in a separate incident, the wife of a top Bangladeshi police officer who carried out several raids against militants was stabbed and shot dead by three bike- borne assailants in front of her minor son in the port city of Chittagong.

Mahmuda Aktar, 33, was targeted by the gunmen at around 6:45 AM (local time) while she was on her way to drop her six- year-old first-grader son to a nearby bus stop for school in Chittagong, about 275 kilometres from here.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said police suspect religious extremists were behind her murder. Kamal, who was in the port city at the time of the murder, told reporters that the Islamists likely to have killed Babul's wife as he played a key-role in a major campaign against JMB.

She was the wife of Superintendent of Police Babul Aktar, now posted at the police headquarters in Dhaka.

Babul has led several raids on militant hideouts and investigated several terror-related cases as the additional deputy commissioner with the Detective Branch in Chittagong.

Babul, who was promoted in April, played a key role in nabbing top militants and busting their hideouts in the southern coastal district. It was his investigations which led to the busting of a hideout of banned outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and arrest of its military wing chief Mohamed Javed in October last year.

"Since Babul Aktar was in counter-terrorism, we suspect that militants are behind the murder of his wife," Detective Branch Deputy Commissioner Moktar Ahmed said.
Quoting witnesses, Chittagong metro police's Deputy Commissioner Paritosh Ghose said that three bike-borne attackers ambushed Mahmuda in front of her minor son. The boy said the attackers first took him away and then one of them stabbed his mother with a knife before shooting her.

Police said that Mahmuda was shot in the head.

"We found three live ammunition and a used casing on the spot. The bullet hit her on the left side of the head," said Police Bureau of Investigation's Additional Superintendent Bashir Ahmed. She is survived by a four-year-old daughter.

There have been systematic assaults in Bangladesh in recent months specially targeting minorities, secular bloggers, intellectuals and foreigners.

Islamic State (also known as ISIS) reportedly claimed responsibilities of most of the murders but Bangladesh authorities rejected the claims.

"The home grown militants visibly are repeatedly trying to prove their links with international outfits like IS or al- Qaeda," a senior home ministry official had told PTI.

"Our investigations found no link of any international group to the incidents (clandestine attacks) in Bangladesh.

In the recent attacks, a liberal professor was brutally hacked to death in April by machete-wielding ISIS militants who slit his throat near his home in Rajshahi city.

There have been systematic assaults in Bangladesh in recent weeks especially targeting minorities, secular bloggers, intellectuals and foreigners.

In the recent attacks, a liberal professor was brutally hacked to death in April by machete-wielding ISIS militants who slit his throat near his home in Rajshahi city.

Two days later, Bangladesh's first gay magazine editor was brutally murdered along with a friend in his flat in Dhaka by Islamists.

On April 30, a Hindu tailor was also hacked to death by machete-wielding ISIS militants in his shop in central Bangladesh.

The ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Indian Peninsula have claimed responsibility for some of the attacks although the government denies their presence in Bangladesh.