Tangail court remands three persons over murder of Hindu tailor

Police in Tangail have been granted six days to grill three people arrested over the murder of a Hindu tailor.

Fifty-year-old Nikhil Chandra Joardar was hacked to death in front of his shop in Gopalpur Upazila on Saturday by motorcycle-borne assailants.

He was killed in a manner similar to that of several bloggers, rights activists and university teachers murdered in Bangladesh recently — machete-wielding attackers targeting the head to ensure immediate death.

The next day police arrested local madrasa principal and Daily Inquilab’s local correspondent Aminul Islam, Gopalpur Jamaat-e-Islami General Secretary ‘Badsha’ and a local BNP activist ‘Jhhantu’.

On Monday, police produced the three before a Tangail court and sought their remand.

The court granted police remand of three days each in two cases filed by the victim’s family over the murder and the police over seizure of bombs found in a bag left behind by the assailants.

Police said that Nikhil’s murder bore resemblance to the recent targeted killings by machete-wielding suspected Islamists.

Witnesses said three men, appeared to be in their 20s, arrived at Nikhil’s shop on a motorcycle. They asked him to come outside saying that they need to talk to him.

As soon as Nikhil came out, the assailants took out machetes and hacked him mercilessly. They fled after making sure he had died.

The assailants left behind a bag, in which police found five crude bombs.

Nikhil had served a jail term of almost two months in a case over hurting religious sensitivities.

He was released after the plaintiff Aminul Islam dropped the charges against him. Islam is among the three arrested over Saturday’s murder.

Bangladesh has witnessed a surge in attacks since early last year in which secular writers, a publisher, bloggers, online activists, minority Muslim sects and other religious groups have been targeted.

The Islamic State and a group affiliated to al Qaeda have claimed responsibility for the killings, including the one on Saturday in Tangail, according to jihadist-monitoring group SITE Intelligence.