Bangladesh: Hindu priest receives death threat

Suspected Islamists claiming to be the ISIS followers have threatened to kill a Hindu priest of the Ramakrishna Mission here if he continues to preach in “Islamic Bangladesh”, prompting authorities to beef up security around the area.

“The security of the (RK) Mission has been intensified as the priest filed a general diary with us,” duty officer of the city’s Wari police station told PTI. The officer declined to disclose the name of the priest. The mission officials were not immediately available for comments but the police said the priest received the threatening letter last evening on a computer-composed IS letterhead with perpetrator identifying him as one AB Siddiqui.

“Bangladesh is an Islamic state. You can’t preach your religion here. If you continue preaching, you’ll be hacked to death with machetes between the 20th and 30th,” the officer quoted the letter as saying. The letter, he said, did not mention any month. On Wednesday evening, a 50-year-old Hindu mathematics lecturer at the Nazimuddin Gover-nment University College, was hacked with lethal weapons by the attackers who stormed his residence in Madaripur in southwestern Bangladesh. The lecturer is the only Hindu victim to survive an attack by the Islamists, who have hacked to death four other members from the community in recent months. Suspected Islamists have killed a number of secular activists, including Hindus and other minorities.