The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the hacking to death of a university professor in Bangladesh on Saturday, accusing him of calling for atheism. "Islamic State fighters assassinate a university teacher for calling to atheism in the city of Rajshahi in Bangladesh," the jihadist group's Amaq news agency said in a statement.
Police said professor Rezaul Karim Siddique, 58, was hacked from behind with machetes as he walked to a bus station in the north-western city where he taught English at the city's public university. "His neck was hacked at least three times and was 70-80 percent slit. By examining the nature of the attack, we suspect that it was carried out by extremist groups," Rajshahi Metropolitan Police commissioner Mohammad Shamsuddin told AFP.
Nahidul Islam, a deputy commissioner of police, told AFP that Siddique was involved in cultural programmes, including music, and set up a music school at Bagmara, a former bastion of an outlawed Islamist group, Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). "The attack is similar to the ones carried out on (atheist) bloggers in the recent past," Islam said, adding nobody had been arrested yet.