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Unknown attackers hack two to death in Bangladesh

Monday, 25 April 2016 5:09 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 25 April 2016 5:06 PM ]

Xulhaz Mannan (Photo taken from his Facebook page)

Police officials in Bangladesh say unknown assailants have hacked two people to death in the capital, Dhaka, two days after a university professor was murdered in a similar way in the country's northwest.

"Unidentified attackers entered an apartment at Kalabagan around 5pm and hacked two people to death. Another person was injured," Dhaka police spokesman Maruf Hossain Sorder said on Monday.

One of the victims, identified as Xulhaz Mannan, was reportedly a rights activist and worked as a protocol officer at the US embassy in Dhaka.

Police said the attackers had entered the house by tricking the victims, adding that they had brought a “package” for Mannan.

People gather around the body of Bangladeshi professor Rezaul Karim Siddique after he was hacked to death by unidentified attackers in the northwestern city of Rajshahi on April 23, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

The killings took place two days after Rezaul Karim Siddique, an English professor, was hacked to death on his way home in the northwestern city of Rajshahi.

Takfiri groups claimed responsibility for the attack but Bangladesh's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan rejected their assertion and said "local militants" were responsible for the murder.

There are reports that Siddique had lately engaged in cultural programs, including music, and had even set up a school in Rajshahi, an area which used to serve as a former bastion of the outlawed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB) militant group.

A string of prominent secular bloggers and activists have been attacked or killed by extremists in Bangladesh over the past few months.

Earlier this month, a 28-year-old law student was also hacked to death by machete-wielding assailants after he posted messages on Facebook criticizing religious extremism and Takfiris.

The Bangladeshi branch of al-Qaeda terror network in the Indian Subcontinent later claimed responsibility for the killing.

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