(VOVworld) - Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the fatal shooting of an Italian citizen on a street in the diplomatic quarter of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, according to an intelligence group monitoring jihadi threats.

Bangladeshi police at the site where Cesare Tavella was shot dead on Monday night in an upmarket area of Dhaka.(Photo:Suvra Kanti Das/Demotix/Corbis)

If the information is confirmed, it would mark the group’s first attack in the secular south Asian nation. The Bangladeshi Minister for Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan, said that no evidence of any IS link to the attack has been found.

Police in Dhaka said they had no leads in tracing the three unidentified assailants, who, riding on a single motorcycle, drove up alongside Italian citizen Cesare Tavella and shot him on Monday night.