Pro-LGBT Bangladeshi editor hacked to death

Dhaka, April 25: Two people including a pro-LGBT editor of a magazine were hacked to death by unidentified assailants here on Monday, the media reported.

A police official said at least five machete-wielding assailants forcibly entered the house of Zulhas Mannan who used to edit "Rupban" -- Bangladesh's first magazine for the LGBT community -- in Dhaka's Kalabagan area, Xinhua news agency reported.

The assailants stabbed the people there indiscriminately, leaving two including Mannan and his friend Tanoy dead and two including a security guard critically injured, said the official who did not wish to be named.

He said the assailants managed to flee the scene immediately on motorcycles.

The motive behind the attack could not be immediately known.

Monday's attacks occurred days after suspected extremists killed a university professor in Bangladesh's Rajshahi district.

Rajshahi University's English department professor A.F.M. Rezaul Karim Siddiquee was hacked to death on Saturday morning by unidentified assailants.

A number of liberal writers, bloggers and publishers in Bangladesh have been killed or seriously injured in attacks by Islamist extremists since 2013.

IANS