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Professor Hacked to Death in Bangladesh

Dhaka: Bangladesh police arrested an Islamist student Sunday over the gruesome murder of a professor one day earlier, the latest such killing claimed by the Islamic State group.

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Rajshahi University professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee, 58, was murdered within 50 metres of his residence in the country’s northwestern city of Rajshahi, police said.

“We have detained a 21-year-old Rajshahi University student who is a Shibir member as a suspect over the murder”, he said.

Teachers and students of Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology and Barisal University held human chains and demonstrated on their respective campuses, protesting the murder. Later on, ISIS claimed to have been responsible for the murder.

Five secularist bloggers and one publisher have been killed by suspected armed fighters in Bangladesh since previous year.

And Anima Choudhury, a former student who studied literature with the professor from 2010-2015, said she saw nothing political in him that could have led to such an attack.

ISIL has reportedly claimed responsibility, accusing the academic of encouraging atheism.

Meanwhile, angry students and teachers of the university rallied in the campus demanding immediate arrest of culprits.

The professor edited a small literary magazine called ‘Kamolgandhar’.

By examining the nature of the attack, we suspect that it was carried out by extremist groups, police comissioner said.

Authorities are investigating whether the Saturday morning slaying was related to a string of similar attacks by fundamentalist Islamic organization Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh targeting atheist bloggers.

Security officials, however, said local Islamist radicals were behind the murders and that messages from IS and AQIS were to cover the trial and confuse investigations.

But fellow university teachers said Mr. Siddiquee, while active in cultural events, never spoke or wrote anything about religion or Islam. Not a single person has been brought to justice for the attacks over the past year.

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“We urge the government of Bangladesh to condemn these murders and apprehend the perpetrators behind this and other attacks motivated by intolerance and hatred”, US Ambassador to Bangladesh Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat said in a statement.

A man holds a portrait of Bangladeshi professor Rezaul Karim Siddique who was hacked to death by unidentified attackers in Rajshahi