Third Bangla blogger hacked to death

Dhaka 

A masked gang wielding machetes hacked a secular blogger to death yesterday in northeastern Bangladesh in the third such deadly attack by suspected Islamists since February.

Police said Ananta Bijoy Das was murdered in broad daylight as he headed to work at a local bank in the city of Sylhet, an attack that fellow writers said highlighted a culture of impunity.

Kamrul Hasan, commissioner of Sylhet police, said a group of around four masked men had attacked Das with machetes at around 8.30am on a busy street in Bangladesh's fifth largest city.

"They chased him down the street and first attacked his head with their machetes and then attacked him all over his body," Hasan said. 

After the attackers fled into the crowds, Das was rushed to hospital but declared dead on arrival, police and medics said.

Police commissioner Hasan would not comment on the motive for the attack but fellow writers said Das had been on a hit-list drawn up by militants who were behind the recent killing of blogger Avijit Roy.

Imran Sarker, head of a Bangladeshi bloggers' association, confirmed that Das was an atheist who regularly blogged for Mukto-Mona.

The website used to be moderated by Roy, a Bangladeshi-born US citizen who was hacked to death in the capital Dhaka in February.

"We condemn this heinous killing. It once again confirms our fear that there is a culture of impunity in Bangladesh. Anyone can now get away with killing a progressive free thinker," Sarker said.

Police chief Hasan said they were investigating an announcement by an unknown group that Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) was behind the killing.

AQIS has already claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on Roy on February 26 in which his wife was badly injured. An Islamist has been arrested over his murder.