A prominent Bangladeshi-American blogger known for speaking out against religious extremism was hacked to death as he walked through Bangladesh's capital with his wife, police said Friday.
The attack Thursday night on Avijit Roy, a Bangladesh-born U.S. citizen, occurred on a crowded sidewalk as he and his wife, Rafida Ahmed, were returning from a book fair at Dhaka University. Ahmed, who is also a blogger, was seriously injured. It was the latest in a series of attacks on secular writers in Bangladesh in recent years.
A previously unknown militant group, Ansar Bangla 7, claimed responsibility for the attack, Assistant Police Commissioner S.M. Shibly Noman told the Prothom Alo newspaper.
Roy "was the target because of his crime against Islam," the group said on Twitter.
Roy was a prominent voice against religious intolerance, and his family and friends say he had been threatened for his writings.
About 8:45 p.m. Thursday, a group of men ambushed the couple as they walked toward a roadside tea stall, with at least two of the attackers hitting them with meat cleavers, police Chief Sirajul Islam said. The attackers then ran away, disappearing into the crowds.
Two blood-stained cleavers were found after the attack, he said.
Islamic extremism has made few inroads in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people, but there have been a series of similar attacks in recent years blamed on militants.
A divide has become increasingly visible between secular bloggers and conservative Islamic groups, often covertly connected with Islamist parties, with the secularists urging authorities to ban religion-based politics while the Islamists press for blasphemy laws to protect their faith.
Islam is Bangladesh's state religion but the country is governed by secular laws based on British common law, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly said she will not give in to religious extremism.
http://www.myfoxny.com/story/28219608/attackers-in-bangladesh-hack-to-death-american-blogger
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