Bride murdered because she slept in

A farmer killed his wife of one week after for failing to wake up early for prayers, Bangladesh police said today.

Saying prayers five times a day is one of the five obligations an observant Muslim must carry out. Skipping a prayer is considered a sin.

Men often beat wives, and parents take children to task, for not praying regularly.

Early yesterday, Rob Howlader, a 25-year-old farmer in southern Bangladesh, asked his 20-year-old wife to get up, wash her hands and face, and say the morning prayer.

When he returned home after praying at a village mosque, Howlader found his wife, Zayeda Bibi, still sleeping.

Screaming in rage, Howlader grabbed a meat cleaver from the kitchen and attacked his wife. She later died in a hospital in Patuakhali district, a police officer said.

‘‘I became mad after my wife committed a sin against Allah,’’ Howlader told police, who arrested him on murder charges at the hospital where he had taken his wife after attacking her.

Howlader, who faces death by hanging if convicted, didn’t try to escape, police said.

Howlader’s farming village is 150 miles south of Dhaka, the capital of predominantly Muslim Bangladesh.