Police in Bangladesh say a Japanese citizen was shot and killed in the northern part of the country Saturday, the second foreigner in a week to be murdered in the South Asian country.

A police official said the man was “shot dead in the remote town of Kaunia” at close range by three men riding a motorcycle.

Authorities say the man worked at a farming project in the Rangpur district, some 300 kilometers from the capital, Dhaka.

The attack happened less than a week after an Italian aid worker was shot in the capital. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the assault on the aid worker, but the government dismissed the claim, calling the attack an “isolated incident.”

Muslim-majority Bangladesh prides itself on being a secular nation. But the country has been struggling to contain rapidly rising militant Islamist groups who have killed at least 10 secular bloggers and activists in the past two and a half years.

 
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