Hindu man hacked to death at his shop in Bangladesh

“They have been detained for questioning in connection with Joardar’s murder as part of the investigation”, Tangail’s additional superintendent of police Mohammad Aslam Khan said. In most of the cases, Islamic State or al Qaida in Indian Sub Continent have claimed the attacks.

In 2012, local Muslims had filed a complaint with police against Joarder, who owned a tailoring shop, for making derogatory comments about the Prophet Mohammed.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group has claimed credit for the attack in a post online but the claim could not be independently verified.

There have been several assaults on minorities, intellectuals, academics and bloggers in Bangladesh in recent months.

Police have detained three people in two cases filed over murder of Hindu tailor Nikhil Chandra Joardar in Gopalpur upazila in Tangail. They took him to a nearby road saying they need to talk to him.

He was charged with hurting religious sentiments and spent three weeks in jail. He was released after the complaint was withdrawn.

The detainees are Badsa Miah, Jamaat secretary of Gopalpur municipal unit, Aminul Islam, principal of Alamnagar Madrasa, and local BNP activist Jhantu, The Daily Star reported.

The attack came days after a Bangladeshi gay rights campaigner and his friend were killed in a similar manner in a Dhaka apartment. Authorities had repeatedly denied that the terror group is active in the country.

Police official Khan said that Islam is among those picked by police to question over the killing. Analysts say militants now pose a growing danger in the South Asian country.

Hindus, the country’s largest religious minority, make up almost 10 per cent of Bangladesh’s 160 million population of mainly Sunni Muslims.