Another Bangladeshi blogger killed

Unidentified attackers on Friday hacked a Bangladeshi secular blogger to death in the capital of Dhaka, police officials said.

It was the fourth such attack in less than six months in the Muslim-majority country.

Criminals entered a fourth-floor apartment of Niloy Chakrabartee at his Khilgaon residence and confined Niloy's wife and sister-in-law at one of the rooms and fatally stabbed Niloy, said police officer Mustafizur Rahman.

Rahman said five assailants armed with machetes stormed the flat in two groups after the Juma prayers and killed Niloy.

The blogger recently received death threats for his writings and stance against radicalism, said people close to him.

"Niloy used to write blogs for different social media using pseudonym Niloy Neel," said the police officer.

Niloy, 40, used to wrote on blog sties called Estition and Muktomona. He was also an activist of Ganajagaran Mancha which rose against the fundamentalists in 2012.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Detective Branch Joint Commissioner Krishnapada Roy told reporters at the crime scene that there were signs of "haphazard hacking on Niloy throat and neck."

No group has yet claimed the responsibility of killing of Niloy although al-Qaida in Indian Sub-Continent (AQIS), a regional al- Qaida affiliate, had allegedly murdered other bloggers.

In February, machete-wielding assailants hacked to death an American of Bangladeshi origin and critic of religious militancy Avijit Roy in Dhaka.

Assailants killed Oyasiqur Rahman on March 29 and Ananta Bijoy Das on May 12 in the same fashion.

Freethinkers and blog writers asked the government to bring the attackers to justice. They blamed religious fundamentalist groups for the attacks on the secular bloggers. Endi