Professor Hacked To Death In Bangladesh

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Unidentified attackers hacked a university professor to death in Bangladesh, police have said, adding that the assault bore the hallmarks of previous killings of bloggers and online activists.

Police said English university professor Rezaul Karim Siddique, 58, was hacked from behind with machetes as he walked to the bus station on Saturday from his home in the country’s northwestern city of Rajshahi.

Two or three assailants rode up on a motorcycle and attacked Siddiquee, slitting his throat and hacking him to death, police official Golam Sackline told reporters, adding that an investigation had been launched.

Rajshahi Metropolitan Police commissioner Mohammad Shamsuddin told AFP that the authorities had not yet named any suspects but added that the pattern of the attack fitted with previous killings of secular and liberal figures.

Teachers and students at Rajshahi University staged a demonstration at campus after the murder.

Nahidul Islam, a deputy commissioner, said Siddique was involved in cultural programmes, including music, and set up a music school at Bagmara, a former bastion of an outlawed group, Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh. “The attack is similar to the ones carried out on [atheist] bloggers in the recent past,” Islam said.