(From AFP)
At least two unknown assailants hacked a Hindu tailor to death in central Bangladesh Saturday, police said, amid a rise in attacks on religious minorities by extremist groups in the Muslim-majority nation.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the murder, the monitor group SITE said. It cited that Amaq Agency reported on Islamic State’s responsibility for the hacking death of the tailor in Tangail district, Dhaka Tribune said.
Police, however, said the victim, named as Nikhil Chandra Joarder, 50, may have been murdered for allegedly making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed several years ago.
“They came on a motorcycle and attacked him as he sat on a roadside. They hacked him on his head, neck and hand,” deputy chief of Tangail district police Aslam Khan said.
Police officials said they were investigating whether the killing was linked to Islamist militants suspected of a series of minority killings, or was tied to a family dispute.
Bangladesh is reeling from a series of brutal attacks on members of minority faiths, secularists, foreigners and intellectuals in recent months, including two gay activists and a liberal professor in the past eight days alone. Read More