TANGAIL: At least two unknown assailants hacked a Hindu tailor to death in central Bangladesh on Saturday, police said, amid a rise in attacks on religious minorities by extremist groups. “They came on a motorcycle and attacked him as he sat on a roadside. They hacked him on his head, neck and hand,” deputy chief of Tangail district police Aslam Khan said.

Police officials said they were investigating whether the killing was linked to Islamist militants suspected of a series of minority killings, or was tied to a family dispute.

Bangladesh is reeling from a series of brutal attacks on members of minority faiths, secularists, foreigners and intellectuals in recent months, including two gay activists and a liberal professor in the past eight days alone.

Many of the killings have been blamed on or claimed by Islamist groups, and in several cases attackers riding motorbikes hacked the victims to death with machetes or cleavers.

Police said local Muslims had filed a complaint against Nikhil Chandra Joarder, who owned a tailoring shop, to police in 2012 for making comments about the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

He was charged with hurting religious sentiments and spent three weeks in jail.

“But the trial did not proceed after the complainants withdrew the charges,” Abdul Jalil, the police chief of Gopalpur sub-district said.

Another police official said that the dispute appeared to have ended peacefully, adding that the victim’s family said he was also being threatened by a relative.

The murder came less than a week after suspected Islamist militants hacked to death two gay rights activists in the capital Dhaka, saying they tried to promote homosexuality in the deeply conservative nation. At least 30 members of religious minorities, secular activists, foreigners and intellectuals have been murdered in Bangladesh in the past three years.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2016