Suspected extremists kill university professor in Bangladesh

A police official said suspected extremists have killed a university professor in Bangladesh's Rajshahi district, some 256 km northwest of capital Dhaka.

According to the official who did not like to be named said Rajshahi University's English Department Professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee was hacked to death on Saturday morning by unidentified assailants.

He said two motorcycle-borne assailants attacked the professor with sharp weapons at around 7:30 a.m. local time on Saturday and they slashed his neck while he was waiting for a bus near to his residence in Rajshahi, a city in north-western Bangladesh.

"Siddiquee, also a writer and cultural activist, died on the spot," the official added.

Law enforcers pointed finger at the extremists as there are similarities between the teacher's murder and the killings of blogger and secular activists in the country since last year.

Rajshahi Metropolitan Police Commissioner Md Shamsuddin told local journalists that the manner of the killing was similar to the case of blogger killings.

The professor's murder brings to seven the total number of secular bloggers and activists killed in Bangladesh since last year.

No organization has yet claimed involvement in Siddique's killing, but militants have claimed responsibility for the past murders including one earlier this month.

On April 6 Nazimuddin Samad, 28, a law student at Dhaka's Jagannath University, was shot and hacked to death by unidentified assailants. Endit