Three assailants on Saturday sped up to a Bangladeshi tailor’s shop by motorcycle, dragged out the Hindu owner and hacked him to death, police said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
Police official Abdul Jalil, quoting witnesses, said the attackers fled the scene after killing 50-year-old Nikhil Chandra Joardar outside his shop in the town of Tangail, 80km northwest of the capital, Dhaka.
Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the killing, saying the tailor had blasphemed Prophet Mohammed, the US-based monitoring service SITE said.
Islamist militants have targeted atheist bloggers, academics, religious minorities and foreign aid workers in a series of killings that dates back to February last year and has claimed at least 20 lives.
International human rights groups say a climate of intolerance in Bangladeshi politics has both motivated and provided cover for perpetrators of crimes of religious hatred.
Police said they were investigating whether Joardar’s killing was connected to a complaint made against him for making a derogatory comment about Prophet Mohammed. He was in jail for a few weeks in 2012, but released after the complaint against him was withdrawn, Jalil said.
The Islamic State and a group affiliated to al-Qaeda have issued similar claims of responsibility in the past, but the authenticity of Saturday’s statement could not be immediately verified.
Three people have been picked up for questioning, police said.
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