Doctor hacked to death by machete-wielding attackers in suspected Islamist attack in Bangladesh

Machete-wielding assailants hackedto death a village doctor and wounded a university teacher inwestern Bangladesh. Police suspect the shocking attack may have been carried out by Islamists following a wave of similar murders in the majority-Muslimnation.

Local police chiefMohammad Sahabuddin Chowdhury confirmed that Mir Sanaur Rahman, 55, was killedon the spot. 

 

The attackers rode a motorcycle, which they used to block a motorcycle ridden by their victims in the western district of Kushtia, 150 miles from Dhaka.  The homeopathic doctor and his companion, identified as Saifuzzaman, 45,suffered serious wounds. Police found a bloody machete at thescene.

'We suspect Islamist militants are behind the attack,'police chief Chowdhury said.

XulhazMannan, editor of the country's first LGBT-themed magazine, andMahbub Rabbi Tonoy were murdered in the capital on April 25. The attack, claimed by the regional arm of al Qaeda, was thefirst of its kind to target the community, although it followedsimilar killings in the last 16 months of university professors,bloggers and atheists who published views critical of Islam. 

 

A student was murdered in Bangladesh last month after posting comments against Islamic extremists on his Facebook page. Nazimuddin Samad, 26, was attacked on 6 April near his university in Dhaka by men carrying machetes. He had posted several comments on Facebook criticising radical Islam and mocking hardline Islamists and their attitude to women's rights. 

Bangladesh's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community was already marginalised in a country where same-sex sexual activity is illegal and many people strongly disapprove.