Fourth secular blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh

Niloy Neel was an activist of the platform demanding capital punishment for the 1971 war criminals

A 40-year-old secular blogger was hacked to death at his flat here today by five machete- wielding assailants in the fourth such brutal murder in Bangladesh this year.

Niloy Neel was killed by unidentified assailants inside his fourth-floor flat at North Gorhan in the capital Dhaka.

Neel was slaughtered in his flat in a building at North Gorhan around 1:45 PM, Khilgaon police officer in charge Mustafizur Rahman told BD News.

He said five assailants had entered the flat after the Friday prayers and killed him.

Neel lived in that flat with his family. He was an activist of the platform demanding capital punishment for the 1971 war criminals -- the Ganajagaran Mancha.

Imran H Sarker, the Ganajagaran Mancha spokesperson, said the attackers had entered the building posing as potential tenants.

Neel's murder is the fourth such brutal murder in the country. Machete-wielding masked men in May hacked to death 33-year-old Ananta Bijoy Das, a secular blogger, in Sylhet city.

Assailants in February had killed 45-year old Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-born US national, here while his wife narrowly escaped the attack.

A month after Roy's killing, another blogger Washiqur Rahman was murdered in similar fashion in Dhaka but people in the neighbourhood nabbed two suspected killers from the scene and handed them over to police.

All three killed were involved with the Ganajagaran Mancha.

In May, terror group al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) had claimed responsibility for the killing of secular bloggers in Bangladesh whom it described as 'blasphemers'.

Radical group Ansar Bangla Team had also claimed responsibility for the deaths.

Two years ago, Mancha activist Ahmed Rajib Haider, another blogger, was hacked to death near his Mirpur home in Dhaka.