Bangladesh Police ask secular bloggers not to 'cross limit'

Bangladesh Police have asked the country's secular bloggers not to "cross the limit" while writing on religious issues.

"Do not cross the limit. Do not hurt anyone's religious belief," Inspector General of Police A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque told reporters on Sunday night.

The "freethinkers" should keep in mind that hurting someone's religious sentiments was a criminal offence, he was quoted as saying by The Daily Star.

Hoque's comment came as police were criticised for their failure to solve the cases of the murders of four liberal bloggers in the past six months.

On Friday, unidentified assailants hacked 28-year-old secular blogger Niladri Chattopadhyay Niloy to death inside his home here.

In February, writer Avijit Roy was hacked to death near Dhaka University. A month later, Oyasiqur Rahman Babu was killed in a similar fashion here while secular blogger Ananta Bijoy Das was murdered in Sylhet in May.