Another Bangladeshi Blogger Hacked To Death

Police in Bangladesh have reported that masked thugs have hacked another Bangladeshi secular blogger to death in the third such deadly attack since the beginning of this year.

Ananta Bijoy Das was attacked at 8.30am in Sylhet city, northeastern Bangladesh. “We have learnt that he was a writer,” deputy commissioner of Sylhet police Faisal Mahmud told AFP.

According to Imran Sarker, head of the Blogger and Online Activists Network in Bangladesh, Das was “an atheist and wrote blogs for Mukto-Mona” (free-mind) a website once moderated by Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-born US writer who was hacked to death in the capital Dhaka in February.

The writer was chased down by four masked assailants before being stabbed to death

A friend of Das said the blogger received death threats from extremists for his writings. “He was on their hit list,” Debasish Debu told AFP.

In March another blogger, 27-year-old Washiqur Rahman, described as a “progressive freethinker”, was hacked to death in the capital Dhaka.