Dhaka: Days after a Hindu priest was murdered in broad day light by suspected ISIS jihadists in Bangladesh, a Hindu ashram worker was today hacked to death by unidentified assailants while he was out for the morning walk in the Muslim majority nation.
60-year-old Nityaranjan Pandey of Thakur Anukul Chandra Satsanga Paramtirtha Hemayetpurdham ashram was attacked by several assailants who hacked him in the neck, said ASP (Sadar Circle) Selim Khan.
Pandey, who was working at the ashram as a volunteer for the past 40 years, was attacked near the ashram in Pabna's Hemayetpur Upazila during his regular morning walk, Khan was quoted as saying by bdnews.
“As a diabetic, every day he walks early in the morning. Today as he was walking, several attackers hacked him in the neck ... He died on the spot,” said local police station chief Abdullah al-Hasan.
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“He had been working at the monastery for around 40 years. In recent years he was the head of its office staff.”
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the murder.
Bangladesh has seen a string of brutal attacks by Islamists on religious minorities and secular activists.
Although it is officially secular, around 90% of Bangladesh’s 160 million people are Muslims, while 8% are Hindus.
This is the second such murder within three days. On June 7, a Hindu priest was hacked to death by three suspected Islamic State jihadists who nearly severed his head.
There have been systematic assaults in Bangladesh in recent months specially targeting minorities, secular bloggers, intellectuals and foreigners. On Sunday, a Christian businessman was hacked to death by unidentified machete-wielding men near a church, hours after the wife of a top anti-terror police officer was shot dead by religious extremists.
In February, militants stabbed to death another Hindu priest at a temple in Bangladesh and shot and wounded a devotee who went to his aid.
In April, a liberal professor was brutally hacked to death by machete-wielding ISIS militants who slit his throat near his home in Rajshahi city. In the same month, a Hindu tailor was also hacked to death by ISIS militants in his shop and Bangladesh's first gay magazine editor was brutally murdered along with a friend in his flat in Dhaka by Islamists.
The ISIS and al-Qaida in Indian Peninsula have claimed responsibility for some of the attacks although the government denies their presence in Bangladesh.
At least 10 people have been killed by suspected Islamist militants in the last ten weeks alone.
Four of them were butchered in April this year alone. Most of the slain activists had been outspoken critics of injustice and religious extremism, and the government’s apparent inaction in bringing the perpetrators to justice.
PTI inputs
