One dead, three injured as gunmen open fire in Bangladesh Shia mosque

A man was dead and three others were injured Thursday night after unidentified gunmen opened fire at a Shia mosque in Bangladesh's Bogra district, some 197 km northwest of Dhaka.

Arifur Rahaman, the district's additional police chief, told Xinhua, "One Moazzem Hossain died at a hospital shortly after he was rushed there for treatment."

He said unidentified miscreants entered the mosque and opened fire indiscriminately on the devotees soon after the Maghrib prayer, leaving three more people injured.

This is the second attack on Shia Muslims in Bangladesh since its independence in 1971.

The attack came hours after police in Dhaka announced that the militant suspected of being a key to planning bombings on Bangladeshi Shias' Ashura mourning procession gatherings last month has been "killed in shoot-out."

Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam of the Detective Branch of the Bangladesh Police told a press conference on Thursday that Al Bani alias Hojja, the alleged planner, of the attacks which left two people killed and over 100 others injured, died during a raid in a Dhaka area late Wednesday night.

Deceased Hojja, a leader of the banned Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), was arrested Wednesday along with his five cohorts who were actively involved with the bombings at the Shia gatherings on Oct. 24.

According to the jihadist threat monitoring portal, SITE Intelligence Group, the IS claimed responsibility for the bombings in an online statement.

However, the Bangladesh Police has maintained it was the handiwork of "local extremists."

JMB, campaigning for the establishment of Islamic rule in Bangladesh, carried out a series of bombings in 63 out of the country's 64 districts, including Dhaka on Aug. 17, 2005, leaving two people dead and 150 others injured.

Hundreds of JMB leaders and activists were rounded up while six top leaders of the group, including Shaikh Abdur Rahman, were hanged in 2007. Enditem