Top Hindu priest slaughtered in Bangladesh

A Hindu head priest in Bangladesh was today hacked to death by gun- and cleaver-wielding suspected Islamists at a temple in an area bordering India, in the latest attack on religious minorities that also injured two devotees.
In a predawn attack, motorbike-borne unidentified assailants, said to over three in number, pelted stones at the house of 50-year-old Jajneswar Roy in the premises of the Santagourhiyo Temple in northern Panchagarh district's Debiganj Upazila.
"They (assailants) first hurled stones at the temple which prompted him (Roy) to come out to see what actually happened. The killers then pounced on him and slit his throat," a devotee in the neighbourhood as saying.

Panchagarh police chief Giasuddin Ahmed, citing local people, said that the head priest was preparing for the morning prayers, when stones were hurled at the temple.
The attack also wounded two Hindu devotees at the temple premises as the assassins were fleeing the scene on a motorbike, firing gunshots and hurling crude bombs to avoid being chased.
The injured includes a neighbour who rushed to the spot to save the priest but was shot at, Ahmed said at the scene.

"The identity of the attackers or the motive behind the murder is not clear. Definitely we will launch an investigation and manhunt to track down the killers," he said.

A blood-stained cleaver was recovered from the spot, authorities said.
The attackers could be members of the banned Islamist militant group Jamaatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB), Shahriar Kajol, Superintendent of Police of Criminal Investigation Dept said.
Today's attack brings to three the number of assaults on religious leaders over the last five months in Sunni-majority Bangladesh, where systematic attacks have killed nine persons including two foreigners besides wounding nearly 100 others.
Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella was killed by unidentified assailants in Dhaka in September and and five days later Japanese farmer Kunio Hoshi was murdered. Both attacks were claimed by Islamic State-affiliated militants.

Also, moderate Sufi saint Khizir Khan, progressive book publisher Faisal Arefin Dipon, and a Sufi shrine worker were murdered while two Christian pastors, one an Italian doctor, narrowly escaped attacks.