Australia police shoot man and injure three bystanders

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Image captionPolice examine the shopping district where police shot a man and three innocent bystanders

Four people have been injured when police opened fire on a man holding a knife at a busy shopping centre in Sydney, Australia.

Three women aged between 60 and 82 were hit by bullets and bullet fragments after two officers fired at the man.

The 23-year-old man, who allegedly approached officers with the knife, was also injured.

An independent team will now investigate the circumstances surrounding Thursday's incident.

Police were called to an organic food market outside Westfield Shopping Centre at Hornsby, in Sydney's north, just before midday after shoppers noticed the man acting strangely.

New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Dennis Clifford said the man was holding a large carving knife and confronted officers when they approached him.

He said two officers fired shots at the man, who was wounded several times.

'Life-and-death situation'

"Unfortunately some bystanders were also injured, with either bullet or fragment wounds," Mr Clifford said.

"The man is known to us. I understand he was reported missing from a psychiatric centre near here yesterday and police were making efforts to try and locate him."

Mr Clifford said it was understood that Tasers, batons and sprays were available to the officers.

"In a life-and-death situation the police had to make a very critical decision on the action that they took," he said.

All the injured bystanders are in hospital in a stable condition.

Witnesses told Australian media of a chaotic scene after police shot the "zombie-like" young man, who was "babbling incoherently" before the incident.

He also remains in hospital, under police guard.

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Wife of Bangladeshi anti-terrorism policeman stabbed, shot dead

Three assailants riding a motorcycle stabbed and then shot Mahmuda Aktar, 33, while she was on her way to put her son onto a school bus near her home in the southeastern port city of Chittagong, police said.

BRIEFCASE

• 1

  Wife of a cop known for battling Islamist extremism shot dead.
• 2

  Assailants riding bike stabbed and then shot Mahmuda Aktar.
• 3

  Government launches security crackdown on militant groups.

The wife of a senior Bangladeshi police official known for battling Islamist militants was stabbed and shot to death today, and machete-wielding assailants killed a Christian grocer in a separate incident.

Both attacks appeared to be the work of Islamist militants who have killed at least 30 people, including religious minorities, liberal bloggers and academics, since February last year, police said.

DETAILS OF THE CASE:

Three assailants riding a motorcycle stabbed and then shot Mahmuda Aktar, 33, while she was on her way to put her son onto a school bus near her home in the southeastern port city of Chittagong, police said.

"She was stabbed first. Then they shot her in the head three times," Humayan Kabir, deputy police commissioner of Chittagong, told Reuters.

Her husband, police superintendent Babul Aktar, has played an important role in cracking down on militants in the region.

"Babul Aktar is an efficient police officer and played a key role in apprehending Islamists. They might have killed his wife because they failed to get him," Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters.

Aktar, who was recently posted to police headquarters in the capital, Dhaka, busted several hideouts of the banned group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen. His team also arrested one of the group's leaders, who was later killed in a grenade blast during a police raid in October.

GOVERNMENT LAUNCHES CRACKDOWN ON MILITANT GROUPS

The government has launched a crackdown on militant groups who want to impose strict Islamic law on Bangladesh, whose population of 160 million are mostly moderate Muslims.

In Sunday's other killing, Sunil Gomes, a 60-year-old shopkeeper, was hacked to death in his shop in the northern district of Natore, local police official Manirul Islam said.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for killing Gomes, according to the U.S.-based monitoring service SITE.

Islamic State and al Qaeda have claimed responsibility for many killings in the past but the government denies either group has a presence in Bangladesh and says home-grown radicals are responsible.

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam told Reuters in an interview last month that Islamic State was trying to ride a wave of religious radicalisation by falsely claiming killings, and said there was enough evidence implicating domestic militant groups.

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