DHAKA: Bangladesh police have arrested a suspected militant over the hacking to death of two gay rights activists, part of a spate of murders of intellectuals, writers and religious minorities, officers said Sunday.
Xulhaz Mannan, an editor of a magazine, and fellow activist Mahbub Tonoy were murdered in a Dhaka apartment last month by about six men carrying machetes and guns.
Police on Saturday arrested 37-year-old Shariful Islam Shihab, described as a member of a local militant outfit that has been blamed for a string of similar gruesome murders of secular and atheist bloggers.
“We’ve arrested one man in connection with the murder of Xulhaz Mannan,” Dhaka police spokesman Maruf Hossain Sorder told AFP.
“He is a member of the Ansarullah Bangla Team,” he said, adding that the two activists were murdered on the orders of the ABT leadership.
Washington has condemned the killings of 25-year Tonoy and Mannan, 35, who worked for US government aid organization USAID, as pressure mounts on Bangladesh to curb the attacks and bring those responsible to justice.
Both men had received threats from militants over their championing of gay rights.
At a press briefing in the capital on Sunday, police said Shihab — who has denied carrying out the killings — owned one of two guns used in the murders and has also supplied arms and bombs for previous ABT operations.
Police seized Shihab in the western town of Kushtia, where he allegedly heads an ABT unit, after raids on several properties, in what Dhaka counter-terrorism chief Monirul Islam said was a “breakthrough” in the case.
The arrest comes after an elderly Buddhist monk was found hacked to death on Saturday in a temple in the southeastern district of Bandarban — the seventh such killing since the start of last month.
Xulhaz Mannan, an editor of a magazine, and fellow activist Mahbub Tonoy were murdered in a Dhaka apartment last month by about six men carrying machetes and guns.
Police on Saturday arrested 37-year-old Shariful Islam Shihab, described as a member of a local militant outfit that has been blamed for a string of similar gruesome murders of secular and atheist bloggers.
“We’ve arrested one man in connection with the murder of Xulhaz Mannan,” Dhaka police spokesman Maruf Hossain Sorder told AFP.
“He is a member of the Ansarullah Bangla Team,” he said, adding that the two activists were murdered on the orders of the ABT leadership.
Washington has condemned the killings of 25-year Tonoy and Mannan, 35, who worked for US government aid organization USAID, as pressure mounts on Bangladesh to curb the attacks and bring those responsible to justice.
Both men had received threats from militants over their championing of gay rights.
At a press briefing in the capital on Sunday, police said Shihab — who has denied carrying out the killings — owned one of two guns used in the murders and has also supplied arms and bombs for previous ABT operations.
Police seized Shihab in the western town of Kushtia, where he allegedly heads an ABT unit, after raids on several properties, in what Dhaka counter-terrorism chief Monirul Islam said was a “breakthrough” in the case.
The arrest comes after an elderly Buddhist monk was found hacked to death on Saturday in a temple in the southeastern district of Bandarban — the seventh such killing since the start of last month.
