Yet another foreigner shot to death

A Japanese national was shot dead by assailants near his farmhouse in Rangpur Saturday morning less than a week of the killing of another foreign national in Dhaka, prompting police to issue a fresh alert across the country to keep foreign nationals safe.
The victim, Hoshi Kunio, 65, was brought dead to the Rangpur Medical College Hospital after he was shot three times from close distance few minutes before 10am on an alleyway on Rangpur-Haragach road in Alutari area.
A senior official of the Japanese embassy in Dhaka confirmed the nationality of the deceased. But, no official statement was available from the embassy as of 8:15pm on Saturday.
No one so far claimed responsibility for the shooting.
Earlier on September 28,  an Italian international aid worker, Cesera Tavella, who was in charge of a project of the Netherlands-based ICCO being implemented in Rangpur, was shot apparently in the same manner in the capital’s diplomatic enclave in Gulshan on his way home.
In both incidents, witnesses said three people were present and escaped the crime scenes on motorcycle, police investigators said.
Both victims sustained three bullets in and around the chest.
‘We had alerted all units following the shooting of Italian national…and we have once again alerted all our units to keep foreign nationals safe and asked the officials concerned to collect intelligence to prevent any such crimes,’ a senior police headquarters official told New Age.
The home minister, Asaduzzman Khan, expressed deep condolence at the killing and told New Age he has ordered all police divisions to set check posts at strategic points and search all motorbike riders.
He said both the killings appeared similar and ‘I do not want to comment any more since the matters are under investigation.’
Kaunia upazila agriculture officer Shamimur Rahman said the foreigner took two acres of farmland at Alutari in the area on lease during the current financial year where he cultivated grass used in mosquito coil.
He regularly visited the farmland by travelling arriving on rental rickshaw or motorbike, neighbours said.
On Saturday, he was on his way to the farmland.
Witnesses said that two assailants shot at him as he got down from a rickshaw near his farmhouse located in an apparently quiet area of Alutari at about 10am, while another person was waiting on a motorcycle.
The assailants escaped the spot on the motorcycle after shooting at him three times.
Mustafa Hossain, who runs a grocery shop about 300 yards from the crime scene, said ‘we heard bullet shots and we saw three people leave the place hurriedly on a motorbike.’
‘The person riding the bike wore a helmet,’ he said, adding, ‘we rushed the victim the RMCH first on a battery run auto-rickshaw and later on a pickup van from Sathmatha area of the city.’
‘We found him dead at the hospital and he was formally declared dead at 10:55am,’ said the Rangpur Medical College Hospital director, ASM Barkatullah.
The Criminal Investigation Department cordoned the crime scene to collect evidence while the Police Bureau of Investigation and other police investigators joined the investigation.
‘Of the three bullets, he sustained one in the middle of the chest, another between the neck and right shoulder, and the last one on the right wrist,’ Barkatullah added.
Police officials said the motorbike the assailants used had no number plate and was marked ‘press.’
The Rangpur police, however, said they were yet to find any motive behind the shooting but were investigating why and how the elderly man became the target of the assailants.
‘We are not clear about the motive,’ said Rangpur police circle assistant superintendent Saifur Rahman.
Police suspected the bullets were from any one of 9mm, 7.5mm and 7.62mm type calibre.
‘We recovered three cartridges from the spot and those have been kept for ballistic examination,’ said Saifur.
In the killing of Cesare, the shooters used 7.65mm, the investigators in Dhaka said, adding both shooting have a number of similarities.
The police, meanwhile, have picked up six people—the rickshaw puller Munnaf Hossain who drove the victim to the spot, Murad Hossain who was working around the victim’s farmhouse, his acquaintances Humayun Kabir Hira and his brother Titash Hossain,  his landlord Zakariya Bala and one Abdul Matin – for interrogation, until 8:15pm.
Rangpur deputy commissioner Mohammad Rahat Anowar and superintendent of police Abdur Razzak, beside others, visited the crime scene.
Hospital officials said the post-mortem examination will be carried out on Sunday in the presence of Japanese officials.
The police said according to his passport, his last entry into Bangladesh was on August 28, 2015.
He was living alone as a paying guest with a family in the district headquarters. The family in the city’s Munshipara, where he used to live, had three members staying in Japan.
The Interchurch Cooperative for Development Cooperation country representative Heleen van der Beek said ‘there is no connection between ICCO and the Japanese national that was killed today in Rangpur….’
The United States ambassador to Bangladesh, Marcia Bernicat, in a tweet urged Bangladesh government to investigate every aspect of this crime and bring the perpetrators to justice as soon as possible.
Bangladesh–Japan relations were established in February 1972. Japan is the single highest donor country to Bangladesh.

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