A British national and a student at a Canadian university have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in last month's deadly siege at a cafe in Bangladesh's capital, police said Thursday.

Hasnat Karim, a Bangladeshi origin British citizen, and Tahmid Khan, who is a student at the University of Toronto, were detained on Wednesday night, police spokesman A.K.M Shahidur Rahman told AFP.

Bangladeshi police Tuesday killed nine suspected Islamist extremists believed to be planning another mass attack following a deadly cafe assault this month, the country's police chief said.

A Christian was hacked to death after Sunday prayers near a church in northwest Bangladesh in an attack -- the latest in a series on religious minorities -- claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

Police said unidentified attackers murdered the 65-year-old in the village of Bonpara, home to one of the oldest Christian communities in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

At least 10 people have been killed and thousands injured in clashes between supporters and candidates of rival parties during the latest Bangladesh local elections, police and poll monitors said Sunday.

Unprecedented levels of violence and allegations of poll rigging have marred local council elections held in phases since March, with at least 90 people killed in total, according to monitors.

A fire in a textile factory in Bangladesh Saturday killed three workers and left five injured, police said, in the latest accident to cast a spotlight on the country's hazardous garment industry.

A Pakistani technician was among those killed in the blaze in the sprawling complex belonging to fabric manufacturer Mom Tex in Narsingdi, just outside the capital Dhaka.

Cyclone Roanu struck the Bangladesh coast on Saturday killing six people and forcing hundreds of thousands more to flee their homes as the storm unleashed strong winds and heavy downpours.

Authorities took more than 500,000 people into shelters as the cyclone made landfall just after noon local time (0600 GMT), packing winds as strong as 88 kilometers (54 miles) per hour.

Bangladesh police have arrested a senior official from the main opposition party and accused him of plotting against the state following his meeting with an Israeli political adviser, an official said Monday.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government is stepping up a crackdown on political opponents in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, which is also reeling from a wave of killings blamed on Islamists.

A group of armed attackers stormed a security post at a camp for Rohingya refugees in southern Bangladesh near the Myanmar border Friday, killing the post commander and looting weapons, police said.

The attackers shot dead the commander and tied up other security personnel with ropes, before stealing 11 rifles and 570 rounds, local police chief Mujibur Rahman said.

Bangladesh police fired rubber bullets at protesters on Wednesday, after the execution of a top Islamist leader heightened tensions in a country reeling from the murders of several secular and liberal activists.

A local Sufi Muslim leader has been found hacked to death in Bangladesh in a suspected Islamist killing, police said Saturday, two weeks after the Islamic State group claimed the murder of a liberal professor in the same northwestern district.

Mohammad Shahidullah, 65, had been missing since leaving home on Friday morning before villagers last night found his body in a pool of blood in a mango grove in Rajshahi.