A 70-year-old Hindu priest was on Tuesday hacked to death in
Bangladesh by three suspected Islamic State jihadists who nearly severed
his head, the second priest from the community to be killed this year
in the Muslim-majority nation which has seen a string of brutal attacks
by Islamists on minorities and secular activists.
Ananda Gopal Ganguly was attacked at around 9:30 am by three
bike-borne men who slit his throat with sharp-edged weapons in the
western Jhinaigah district's Noldanga village, Assistant Superintendent
of Police Gopinath Kanjilal said, adding that suspected militants
carried out the murder.
"As it appears Ganguly was killed by the militants as it matches the
pattern they followed previously," Jhinaidah's police chief Altaf
Hossain told PTI.
"He was an old ordinary man who was known little beyond the
neighbourhood and we found no clue as well that he had enmity with
anyone... the circumstances led us to point our figure to militants as
we launched the investigation initially," he said.
The police said they have recovered the body and sent it for an autopsy. An investigation was launched into the incident.
The near-decapitated body of the priest was discovered by farmers at a farmland near his home.
Meanwhile, IS claimed responsibility for the killing of the Hindu
priest. The terror group said it "assassinated" the priest while he was
going for prayers, the SITE monitoring group quoted the terror group's
Amaq news agency.
Ganguly, who was a priest at the Noldanga temple in Sadar upazila,
was on his way to the temple riding a bicycle to offer prayers when the
unidentified assailants struck. They first shot him and then hacked him
to death to make sure that he was dead.
Launching a massive crackdown on extremists after a spate of attacks,
Bangladesh police on Tuesday gunned down three suspected Islamists.
The three were operatives of the outlawed Jamaatul Mujahideen
Bangladesh outfit which was targeted by Superintendent of Police Babul
Aktar whose wife was brutally killed by the militants on Sunday.
There have been systematic assaults in Bangladesh in recent months
specially targeting minorities, secular bloggers, intellectuals and
foreigners.
On Sunday, a Christian businessman was hacked to death by
unidentified machete-wielding men near a church, hours after the wife of
a top anti-terror police officer was shot dead by religious extremists.
In February, militants stabbed to death a Hindu priest at a temple in
Bangladesh and shot and wounded a devotee who went to his aid.
In April, a liberal professor was brutally hacked to death by
machete-wielding IS militants who slit his throat near his home in
Rajshahi city.
In the same month, a Hindu tailor was also killed by IS militants in
his shop while Bangladesh's first gay magazine editor was brutally
murdered along with a friend in his flat in Dhaka by Islamists.
Bangladeshi authorities have been coming under mounting international
pressure to end the string of attacks on religious minorities and
secular activists that have left more than 40 people dead in the last
three years.
The IS and al-Qaeda in Indian Peninsula have claimed responsibility
for some of the attacks although the government denies their presence in
Bangladesh and has blamed homegrown Islamists for the killings.
According media reports, two officials from Indian High Commission have met with the family on Wednesday of a slain Hindu priest in Jhenidah and assured them of monetary assistance.
According media reports, two officials from Indian High Commission have met with the family on Wednesday of a slain Hindu priest in Jhenidah and assured them of monetary assistance.
Courtesy: Rediff.com
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