Hindu priest, Buddhist hacked in B’desh

Dhaka, July 1 

A Hindu priest and a Buddhist leader were hacked to death by machete-wielding Islamic  State (IS) militants while another Hindu man survived a bid on his life in Bangladesh, the latest in a series of vicious attacks on minorities in the Muslim-majority nation.

Shymanondo Das, in his mid 50s, was plucking flowers for prayers at a garden on the Radhamodon Gopal Moth premises when three assailants riding on a motorcycle attacked him with a machete, said Jbahar Ali Sheikh, Additional Superintendent of Police in Jhenidah. “Three motorbike-borne assailants attacked (priest) Shymanondo Das with machetes at 6.30 am....doctors declared him dead at Jhinaidah Sadar Hospital,” a police officer said. “To make sure he died, they rained multiple blows on his head and neck with sharp-edged weapons,” the officer said.

Das is the third Hindu priest to be killed this year by Islamist militants.

Officer-in-charge Hafizur Rahman, said Das was the priest of Radhamodon Gopal Moth. He said the killers fled the scene, a pattern which was followed in previous several such Islamist attacks on minorities. 

Marma, a farmer of the ethnic community and a former ward-level leader of the ruling Awami League, was killed by machete-wielding assailants at Samshankhola, said Abul Khair, officer-in-charge of the Naikkhangchhari police station. “He died on the spot.” In May, a Buddhist monk was brutally murdered in the area.

“IS fighters  killed a Hindu in Bangladesh’s Jhenaidah and murdered leader of a Buddhist party in Banderban,” the IS-affiliated Amaq news agency said, according to SITE Intelligence Group.

Indian Minister of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup said India was concerned over the growing number of attacks on the minorities in Bangladesh and conveyed it  to the government in Dhaka.  — Agencies

Militant involved in attack on Hindu lecturer held

Dhaka: An Islamist militant, believed to be the masterminded of a failed assassination attempt on a Hindu lecturer in southwestern Bangladesh, has been arrested from Dhaka, the police said on Friday. Khaled Saifullah, who masterminded an attempt to murder Ripon Chakrabarty, a Mathematics lecturer at the Nazimuddin Government University College in Madaripur, was arrested by a counter-terrorism unit of the police  on Thursday night, Deputy Commissioner Masudur Rahman said. Three Islamists had hacked Chakrabarty at his home with sharp weapons on June 15 in an attempt to kill him.  PTI