A Hindu tailor was hacked to death in Bangladesh on Saturday, the latest victim in a series of similar attacks in this South Asian nation.
Police said Nikhil Joarder was inside his tailoring shop in the central Bangladeshi district of Tangail when at least two assailants drove up on motorbikes and attacked him with machetes.
He died immediately, according to Tangail Police Superintendent Mohammed Tanvir.
The superintendent said a complaint was filed against Joarder in 2012 for making derogatory comments about the Prophet Mohammed.
Joarder was then arrested and released after spending a few weeks in jail, police said.
Authorities don’t know “if there is a link between the murder and the comments he made in 2012,” Tanvir told CNN.
Earlier this week, two LGBT activists — one of whom also worked for the USAID, an American government organization for poverty prevention — were hacked to death in Dhaka.
The USAID said the employee was Xulhaz Mannan, who worked at the organization but also served as editor of Bangladesh’s first LGBT magazine.
The other victim was Tanay Mojumdar.
Like Mannan, he was openly gay and was a leader in the fight for LGBT rights, a British photographer told CNN’s Ivan Watson.
Ansar al-Islam, the Bangladeshi division of al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent, has claimed responsibility for the killings.
Human Rights Watch called on Bangladesh to investigate the murders.
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Source: CNN