A 28-year-old Bangladeshi law student, who was critical of radical Islamists, has been murdered in cold blood in Dhaka by machete-wielding militants, the latest in a series of attacks on secular bloggers and activists in the Muslim majority country. Nazimuddin Samad, who was reported to have been an organiser of the Ganajagran Manch, a secular campaigning group, was hacked at a traffic junction late on Wednesday and then shot, police said.
Another secular writer has been hacked to death in #Bangladesh. https://t.co/QW0M7toVaK Nazimuddin Samad was 26. pic.twitter.com/nPcYOo4r7m
— Anup Kaphle (@AnupKaphle) April 7, 2016
Hailing from Sylhet, Nazim was the information and research secretary of Sylhet district unit of Bangabandhu Jatiya Jubo Parishad. His friends said he used to campaign for secularism on Facebook and was critical of radical Islamists. A day before he was murdered, he had voiced his concerns over the country’s law and order in a Facebook post.
According to an eye witness, while murdering Samad, the killers shouted Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest). The youth accompanying the victim has been missing since the incident, a police official said. “They initially hacked him and then fired gunshots to confirm his death,” the official said.
Secular activist Nazimuddin Samad killed for criticizing Islamism in #Bangladeshhttps://t.co/t2OTsi4oNs pic.twitter.com/KiM0Ru8zni
— ABP News (@abpnewstv) April 7, 2016