Hindu priest murdered in Bangladesh in suspected militant attack

A Hindu priest has been killed in the northwestern Bangladesh district of Jhenaidah in what police suspect to be a militant attack.

The priest Anando Gopal Ganguly was attacked on Tuesday morning by three men, who came on a motorcycle, said Assistant Superintendent of Police Gopinath Kanjilal.

Armed with sharp weapons, the assailants slit 69-year-old Ganguly’s throat around 9:30am while he was on his way to the temple he served.

Kanjilal said that the Ganguly was on his bicycle, when the assailants first hit him on his head with a stick before slaughtering  him.

“It seems that militants might be responsible for the killing,” said Kanjilal.

Monitoring group SITE Intelligence reported that Middle East-based Islamic State claimed the murder.

In January this year, homeopath Samir Ali was found murdered inside his chamber in Jhenaidah after unidentified miscreants knifed him to death.

The local Christian community claimed then that Ali preached Christianity after his conversion and that’s why the militants killed him.

IS reportedly claimed responsibility for the killing.

Bangladesh has seen a rise in suspected militant attacks in the last two years targeting bloggers, online activists, members of religious minorities and  rights activists.

The IS and the al Qaeda have reportedly claimed responsibilities for many of these attacks.

In the last two days, incidents of two other targeted killings occurred in Bangladesh. In one of them, police suspect militant’s link and IS reportedly claimed the other one.

>> A senior police officer’s wife was stabbed and shot in the head in the port city of Chittagong. Three men,on  a motorcycle, attacked her while she was on her way to drop her 6-year-old son to school.

>> The same day, a 60-year-old Christian man in the northern district of Natore was hacked to death inside his shop in a Christian neighbourhood. IS has reportedly claimed the killing.

Law enforcers have been blaming Islamist radicals for the killings in the last two years, mostly in the country’s north-west

On May 14, a Buddhist monk was found murdered inside a monastery in the hill tract district of Bandarban, which the IS reportedly claimed.

In the northern district of Panchagarh, a head priest of a temple was hacked to death. Three assailants on a motorcycle armed with guns and sharp weapons

took part in the killing in February this year

.

After arresting a few people over the murder, police said that operatives of banned militant outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) were behind it.

On Mar 22, a 1971 War veteran in the northern district of Kurigram, who had converted into Christianity, was killed after three men hacked at him with sharp weapons before fleeing on a motorcycle.

In April this year, a Hindu tailor, who had been in jail in a case of hurting religious sensitivities, was murdered in Tangail in a similar way— three assailants using sharp weapons.

Two people were injured when shots were fired and bombs were hurled at a temple in the northern district in Dinajpur on Dec 10 last year.

Locals managed to nab one of the attackers and police later said that militants were behind it.

On Nov 18 last year, unidentified gunmen on motorcycle shot an Italian priest in Dinajpur town, who had survived the attack. 

The 78-year-old, a doctor by profession, served at a local church and worked in a hospital in the northern district town.

In October last year, three men in Pabna tried to murder a Christian priest inside his home.

On May 21 this year, a 55-year-old homeopath in Kushtia, who preached the syncretic Baul culture, was

hacked to death by three men coming on a motorcycle

. IS reportedly claimed the killing.

USAID official Xulhaz Mannan and his friend Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy were hacked to death in the capital on Apr 25 this year, when assailants barged into his apartment. Both of them were LGBT rights activists.

SITE Intelligence reported that the al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) claimed the murders.

The AQIS came into spotlight after it claimed the February 2015 murder of writer-blogger Avijit Roy on the Dhaka University campus.

The Bangladesh government have been denying the existence of IS and AQIS in the country and blames ‘home-grown terrorists’ for the killings.