Photos: Another Bangladeshi Blogger Niloy Neel Hacked To Death in latest attack

A Bangladeshi blogger known for his atheist views has been hacked to death by a gang armed with machetes in the capital Dhaka, police say. Niloy Neel was attacked at his home in the city’s Goran area.He is the fourth secularist blogger to have been killed this year by suspected Islamist militants in Bangladesh.

Imran H Sarkar, head of the Bangladesh Blogger and Activist Network, 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.

Police said about six attackers had tricked their way into Mr Neel’s home by saying they were looking to rent a flat.

“Two of them then took him to a room and then slaughtered him there,” deputy police commissioner Muntashirul Islam said.His wife was in the flat but she was confined to another room.”

 Mr Neel was not only secular but atheist and, like two of the others, he was from a Hindu, not a Muslim, background. All four men killed were on a list of 84 “atheist bloggers” drawn up by Islamic groups in 2013 and widely circulated.