Hindu priest killed, 2 devotees injured in Bangladesh

Bangladesh Police have detained three people in connection with the attack on a temple in north Bangladesh on Sunday where a Hindu priest was killed and a devotee shot at.

Roy, who founded the temple in 1998 and served as its principal and chief priest since then, was preparing for the morning prayers when stones were hurled at the temple.

Bangladesh has experienced a wave of militant violence in recent months, including a series of bomb attacks on mosques and Hindu temples.

The attackers could be members of the banned Islamist militant group Jamaatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB), Shahriar Kajol, Superintendent of Police of Criminal Investigation Dept said.

During the attack, the militants’ event shot at a devotee who went forward to help the priest.

“We recovered a blood-stained cleaver from the spot”.

Police super of the district Gias Uddin said police arrested JMB men Khalilur Rahmna, 45, and Babul Hossain, 40, and Jahangir Alam, 25, an activist of local Islami Chhatra Shibir, during a drive in the intervening night of Sunday and Monday. Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad and Bangladesh Hindu Buddha Christian Oikya Parishad, in separate statements, have strongly condemned the killing.

Today’s attack brings to three the number of assaults on religious leaders over the last five months in Sunni-majority Bangladesh, where systematic attacks have killed nine persons including two foreigners besides wounding almost 100 others.

IS has in addition said it was behind the murders of an Italian aid worker in September and a Japanese citizen in October. Both men survived the attacks.

Bangladesh authorities, however, have dismissed the claim, saying the Middle-East-based group had no presence in the country.

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