Prominent Bangladeshi secular blogger murdered

A group of attackers armed with machetes hacked a Bangladeshi blogger to death Friday in his apartment in the capital of Dhaka, authorities said.

According to the official Bangladeshi news agency, unidentified assailants killed Niloy Chakrabarti - who used the pen name Niloy Neel in the capital's North Goran district, police and hospital sources said.

"We rushed to the scene receiving a phone call informing us about the murder at about 1.30 pm . . . Police recovered the body from the fourth floor of a five-storey apartment building at North Goran," Duty Officer of Khilgaon Police Station Sub-Inspector Mohammad Jahidul Islam told news service BSS.

He said according to the initial information gathered by police a gang of six people entered the 40-year old Chakrabarti's apartment and slaughtered him confining his wife in another room.

The killing of the secular blogger was at least the fourth this year targeting those who posted online pieces critical of religious topics, according to the Mukto-Mona (Freethinker) humanist blogging platform of which Chakrabarti was a contributor.

Neel used to contribute in Mukto-Mona established by Avijit Roy, who was murdered in February.