DHAKA: Bangladesh police have arrested a suspected militant for sending death threats to prominent secular academics, as the country reels from rising extremist violence, officers said on Wednesday.

Police accuse Abdul Haque, a former teacher at an Islamic seminary, of threatening noted academics and writers in the name of the Militant Islamic State group (IS) and local banned outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team.

“He sent death threats via telephone and text messages using a fake IS identity,” police spokesman Monirul Islam said, adding that prominent secular intellectual Anisuzzaman, historian Muntasir Mamun and writer Mohammed Zafar Iqbal were among the targets.

Tensions are running high in Bangladesh after a series of killings of secular bloggers and a publisher as well as the murders of two foreigners.

Secular writers, academics and bloggers have received death threats in the wake of the killings, while some have fled overseas fearing for their lives.

Police have stepped up a search for those behind the threats as well as security of those targeted after a hitlist was published on the Internet of 153 names.

Tuesday night’s arrest came as police announced a Bangladeshi man has also been detained for spreading IS propaganda on the Internet.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2015