Police in Bangladesh said they have detained three people in connection with the shooting death on Saturday of a Japanese citizen, the second foreign national killed in the South Asian nation within a week.
Kunio Hoshi, 65, was attacked by unidentified assailants in Kownia in Rangpur district, 335 km (210 miles) north of the capital Dhaka, and died on the way to hospital, police said.
"We have detained three persons and are trying to know the motive for the killing," Farukh Hossain, an additional superintendent of police of Rangpur district, told Reuters.
Another police official said that before investigations, it was difficult to say if the attack might be linked to one in Dhaka on Sept. 28.
In that one, an Italian working on a project in Bangladesh, Cesare Tavella, was shot dead by three gunmen in the first attack in the country claimed by Islamic State.
After Tavella's death, concerns that foreigners might be targeted prompted Western embassies to curtail diplomats' movements in Bangladesh.
Attacks on foreigners are rare in Bangladesh, despite a rising tide of Islamist violence over the past year that has seen four online critics of religious militancy hacked to death, among them a U.S. citizen of Bangladesh origin.
Rezaul Karim, the officer in charge of the local police station, told reporters that Hoshi, who was born in Bangladesh, was shot in the chest, hand and leg.
Farukh said the man was working on a cattle-feeding project and had come to the district on Aug. 28.
An official of the Japanese embassy in Dhaka said she was trying to ascertain the details of the incident and contact family members in Japan to get more information about the victim.
Police said one of the three detained people was a rickshaw puller and another is owner of a residence close to where the attack took place.