He says people with information about the chairman’s location will be rewarded
Cases filed over murder of Bangladesh LGBT rights activist Xulhaz Mannan and his friend
Two cases have been filed over the murders of an LGBT rights activist and his friend in Bangladesh.
Published : 26 April 2016, 05:14 AM
Updated : 12 April 2019, 10:52 AM
The country’s first LGBT magazine editor Xulhaz Mannan, 35, was killed inside his apartment in capital Dhaka on Monday along with one of his friends, Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy, a theatre activist.
Xulhaz Mannan’s brother Minhaz Mannan filed the case late on Monday with the local police.
“It accuses five to six unidentified men. Any arrests are yet to be made,” said Kalabagan police’s Assistant Sub Inspector Shyamol Chandra Halder.
Meanwhile, the police filed a separate case over the attack on one of its men by the assailants and over the recovery of a firearm inside a bag, which the injured police officer snatched from the assailants.
The case filed by police also named five to six unidentified men.
Xulhaz, a USAID programme officer, used to edit the ‘Roopbaan’ magazine that advocates for the rights of gays.
He had also worked as an assistant protocol officer at the US embassy in Dhaka.
Witnesses said some youths, clad in T-shirts and jeans, fled after firing from their guns, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’.
The attackers also injured a security guard of the building, Parvez Molla.
A police officer was injured while trying to stop the assault. But he managed to snatch a bag one of the assailants was carrying.
Police said they have found ‘important evidences’ in the bag.
Police did not immediately say who carried out the attack. But the killings of Xulhaz and Tonoy bore a chilling similarity to those of secular bloggers and online activists in the recent past.
Dhaka metro police chief Asaduzzaman Mia said that circumstantial evidences suggested that Xulhaz was the prime target of the attack.
Elite police unit RAB’s intelligence wing chief Abul Kalam Azad said they believed it was a ’planned attack’.
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