Italian wounded in latest attack on foreigners in B'desh

A 57-year old Italian priest was today shot and wounded by unidentified assailants in northern Bangladesh in yet another attack on foreigners that have been previously claimed by the dreaded Islamic State terror group.
Piero Parolari, who is a priest and has been working as a doctor at a Catholic mission, was attacked by assailants in Dinajpur and he was being treated for his injuries on the neck at the Dinajpur Medical College Hospital.
The attack came over a month after an Italian aid worker -- Cesare Tavella, 50, -- was shot and killed on September 28. Five days later, a 66-year-old Japanese farmer -- Hoshi Kunio -- was also killed by unidentified assailants in a similar attack on the outskirts of Rangpur city.

Both the attacks on Tavella and Kunio were claimed by the dreaded Islamic State militant group. However, the police and the Bangladesh government rubbished the claims, saying the attacks were being carried out by opposition forces that wanted to destablise the country.
"Doctors said his (Parolari's) condition is stable though he was hit on the neck" as assailants fired gunshots while he was on his way to a hospital, a police officer told PTI.
He said the Italian national was a priest and also worked as a doctor at a Christian missionary hospital in Dinajpur and came to Bangladesh 35 years ago.

Police has launched an initial probe into the incident to track down the culprits.

The Italian priest came under gun attack as he was on his way to the Dinajpur Medical Hospital where he serves as a volunteer physician every morning before going to his mission hospital.
"He is now being treated himself at the Dinajpur Medical College Hospital, where he treats others at this time," a doctor at the medical facility told reporters.
The attack came as the hearing of review petitions of two 1971 war crimes death row convicts was underway at the Supreme Court. Ministers and police have earlier said that the attacks on foreigners and secular bloggers were being carried out to halt the war crimes trials.

There have been a series of murders and attacks in
Bangladesh in the past six months with Italian aid worker Tavella killed in Dhaka by unidentified assailants and five days later Japanese farmer Hoshi gunned down in an identical manner in northwestern Rangpur.
In the subsequent days, unidentified assailants hacked to death moderate Sufi saint and state-run Power Development Board's former chief Khizir Khan, progressive book publisher Faisal Arefin Dipon, two on duty policemen, a Muslim Sufi shrine aide and carried out a blast on a Shiite rally, leaving two dead.
In the past few days, assailants have also tried to hack to death a church pastor, two bloggers and a publisher, a military policeman on duty and a jail guard in uniform at several places.

Five writers and bloggers along with a publisher have been hacked to death in Bangladesh in the past two and half years, five of them since January this year with families and friends of the deceased alleging failure on the part of police in bringing perpetrators to justice.+
The pattern of the attacks suggests the assailants targeted law enforcement or security agency members, secular writers and bloggers and moderate Muslim Sufis who were opposed to Islamists or religious extremism.
According to US-based SITE Jihadist monitoring group, the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibilities for the attacks on foreigners.
Ansarul Islam or Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), the Bangladesh chapter of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent (AQIS), claimed to have carried out the fatal attacks on publishers and bloggers.

However, security agencies have rejected the claims of the Islamic State with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accusing the opposition BNP and Jamaat for the attacks to destabilise the government and halt the 1971 war crimes trial.