DHAKA: A university professor was hacked to death on Saturday in Bangladesh, police said, with the militant Islamic State (IS) group claiming responsibility for the latest in a series of attacks on liberal activists.

Two assailants on a motorcycle attacked Rezaul Karim Siddiquee, 58, a professor of English at Rajshahi University, slitting his throat and hacking him to death, Rajshahi city police chief Mohammad Shamsuddin told reporters, quoting witnesses.

Prof Siddiquee was found lying in a pool of blood near his home, where he was apparently waiting for a bus to the university campus about 200 kilometres northwest of Dhaka when he was attacked.

IS claimed responsibility for the killing of the professor for “calling to atheism”, the US-based SITE monitoring service said quoting the militant group’s Amaq Agency.

Police said the murder was similar to other recent attacks on secular bloggers by Islamist militants. But fellow university teachers said Prof Siddiquee, while active in cultural events, never spoke or wrote anything about religion or Islam.

“Professor Rezaul was killed in a similar fashion as the killings of bloggers,” Shamsuddin said, adding that he was a peaceful person and had no enemies.

Five secular bloggers and a publisher have been hacked to death in Bangladesh since February last year.

A group affiliated with Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the killing of a liberal blogger earlier this month, the SITE has said.

Bangladeshi authorities have said the home-grown militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team is behind the attacks on online critics of religious extremism.

The gruesome killing on Saturday triggered a protest by teachers and students of the Rajshahi University, blocking a major road and demanding immediate arrest of the killers. Three teachers at the university have been killed in recent years.

IS has also claimed responsibility for the killings of two foreigners, and attacks on mosques and Christian priests in Bangladesh since September, but police said local militant group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen was behind those attacks.

The government has denied that IS or Al Qaeda has a presence in Bangladesh. At least five militants have been killed in shootouts since November as security forces have stepped up a crackdown on Islamist extremists.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2016