Another Secular Bangladesh blogger hacked to death

A gang armed with machetes hacked a secular blogger to death at his home in Dhaka on Friday — according to an activist group and police.

Police said about six attackers had tricked their way into Mr Niloy Neel's fourth-floor residence around 1:20 pm by saying they were looking for an apartment on rent.  When Mr Neel said it was unavailable, the man made a phone call and within  moments, two men rushed in, armed with machetes and a gun.

"They entered his room in the fifth floor and shoved his friend aside and then hacked him to death. He was a listed target of the Islamist militants," said the network's head, Imran H. Sarker.

Police confirmed Niloy Chakrabarti, who used the pen-name Niloy Neel, had been murdered by a group of half a dozen people in the capital's Goran neighbourhood, although they had no details on his background or the motive for the killing. Mr Neel's wife and sister were locked in the verandah at gunpoint, the blogger dragged to another room and his throat slit.

Asif Mohiuddin, a secular blogger who himself survived an attack by militants in Bangladesh in 2013, described Chakrabarti as an atheist "free thinker" whose posts appeared on several sites.

"He was critical against religions and wrote against Islamist, Hindu and Buddhist fundamentalism. He was a founding member of a rationalist organisation," Mohiuddin, who is now based in Berlin, told AFP by phone.

Niloy Neel was associated with Gonojagoran Manch, the organisation behind the powerful Shahbag movement against Islamic Jihadists. The organisation's head, Imran H Sarkar, said, "Now we are not even safe in our homes. Niloy had been receiving threat calls and had gone to the police to file a complaint. He had told me the police said, 'just go away abroad'."

Imran H Sarkar also told the BBC that Mr Neel had been an anti-extremist voice of reason. "He was the voice against fundamentalism and extremism and was even a voice for minority rights - especially women's rights and the rights of indigenous people," he said.

BBC World Service South Asia editor Charles Haviland says that, like previous victims, Mr Neel was not only secular but atheist and, like two of the others, he was from a Hindu, not a Muslim, background.

In his latest blog, which was posted on August 3, Chakrabarti had asked why mosques were being air-conditioned.

In February, prominent atheist blogger and science writer Avijit Roy was hacked to death in the middle of Dhaka. The attack sparked national and international outrage. In March, blogger Washiqur Rahman was killed after being cornered in an industrial area of the capital. Then in May, Ananta Bijoy Das, 33, was killed in the northeastern city of Sylhet. Das had been an organizer for forums that openly campaigned for a secular Bangladesh.

All four men killed were on a list of 84 "atheist bloggers" drawn up by Islamic groups in 2013 and widely circulated. It was originally submitted to the government with the aim of having the bloggers arrested and tried for blasphemy. The groups which wanted bloggers arrested however, told BBC they have no knowledge of who is behind the killings.

Meanwhile, Ansarullah Al Islam, which describes itself as the Bangladesh chapter of Al Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for Mr Neel's death, according to Daily Star, a Dhaka newspaper.

Pervez Alam, a prominent Bangladeshi blogger, previously told ucanews.com that an apparent lack of political will has made Bangladesh a dangerous place for atheist writers to speak their minds.

“Atheists are a minority in the country and they don’t have power and influence to claim justice from the government,” Alam told ucanews.com in March.

“If this continues, more bloggers will be killed at the hands of Islamists, unless there is a political will to save them.”

Activists say the government is not doing enough to ensure safety for bloggers even though the jihadist group Ansarullah Bangla had circulated a list of 80 bloggers on their hit list.

(Source: BBC, AFP, UCAN)