DHAKA, Bangladesh, Aug. 14 (UPI) — Two men have been arrested in the hacking death of noted atheist blogger Niloy Chakrabarty Neel, police in Dhaka, Bangladesh, announced Friday.
A gang of assailants used machetes to kill Neel, 40, in his Dhaka home on Aug. 7. His online comments on secular and atheist themes caused controversy in Bangladesh, an officially secular country with a heavily Muslim population and a government some say is indifferent to attacks on bloggers. Neel was the fourth secular blogger killed in the country this year; the arrests came after police Inspector General Shahidul Haque received criticism and scorn for requesting that the blogging community refrain from writing anything injurious to religious feelings.
“Two of the suspects are now in our custody. They are Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) members,” a police spokesman said of the arrests, referring to a banned militant group which claimed responsibility for Neel’s death. ABT, also known as Ansar-al-Islam, is also the Bangladesh affiliate of al-Qaida.
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