Hindu priest macheted to death in Bangaldesh

A Hindu priest was killed at a temple in Bangladesh, police and senior administrative officials have said.


Shaymanonda Das, 45, was killed on Friday in the Jhinaidah district, 300km south west of the capital, Dhaka.

"He was preparing morning prayers with flowers at the temple early in the morning and three young people came by on a motorbike, killed him with machetes and fled away," Mahbubur Rahman, the head of the local administration, said.

"The nature of killing was similar with the local militants, but we cannot say more at the moment," Mahbubur told the Reuters news agency.


Police said they did not know the motive behind the killing and that no one had been arrested.

Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people, has seen a surge in violent attacks in recent months on liberal activists, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) has claimed responsibility for some of the recent killings. The government, though, denies the group has any presence in the country and says homegrown groups are behind the spate of attacks.

Source: Reuters