Bangladesh police detained three people on Sunday over the gruesome murder of a Hindu tailor one day earlier, the latest deadly attack on minorities claimed by the militant Islamic State (IS) group.
A senior officer said the principal of a madressah and two others were being held for questioning over the hacking to death of Nikhil Chandra Joarder outside his shop in Tangail town, northwest of Dhaka.
Police suspect the 50-year-old Nikhil Chandra Joarder may have been targeted on Saturday for allegedly making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) four years ago.
Tangail deputy police chief Aslam Khan said the three have been “taken into police custody for questioning” including a local leader of the country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami.
“The madressah principal filed a complaint against the deceased in 2012 for making derogatory remarks against the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH),” Khan told AFP.
The attack comes after two gay activists were hacked to death last week, attacks claimed by a Bangladeshi branch of Al Qaeda, while a liberal professor was also killed days earlier.
