DHAKA: Bangladesh police Tuesday filed criminal cases against two Islamic students and two others for the machete murder of a blogger accused of mocking Islam, the second such attack in recent weeks.

Washiqur Rahman was hacked to death near his home on Monday morning in Dhaka, less than two months after the murder of an American atheist blogger triggered international outrage.

Police Inspector Mohammad Salahuddin said three knife-wielding attackers killed the 27-year-old because they believed he had “defamed Islam” in the mainly Muslim country through writings on social media.

Police lodged preliminary murder charges against two students of madrassas who were arrested at the scene, along with the third who fled and is still on the run, another officer said. An alleged planner of the attack was also charged and is now under investigation after the students named him during police questioning, said deputy commissioner Biplob Kumar Sarker.

“A case was filed against the four people accusing them of the murder of the blogger,” Sarker told AFP.

One of the two arrested had been studying at a top madrassa in the port city of Chittagong, headed by hard-line group Hefazat-e-Islam.

The group was behind massive protests against secular bloggers in 2013 that left nearly 50 people dead. Police launched a crackdown at the time on thousands of hard-liners who poured into Dhaka demanding the execution of bloggers.

Monday’s killing bears strong similarities to the murder of Avijit Roy, an American blogger of Bangladeshi origin who was hacked to death with machetes in Dhaka in February.