A Rajshahi University professor was hacked to death outside his house in the in Salbagan area of Rajshahi city on Saturday, police said, adding that the assault bore the hallmarks of previous killings by Islamist militants of secular and atheist activists.

Police said English professor Rezaul Karim Siddique, 58, was hacked from behind with machetes as he walked to the bus station from his home in the country’s northwestern city of Rajshahi, where he taught at the city’s public university.

‘His neck was hacked at least three times and was 70-80 percent slit. By examining the nature of the attack, we suspect that it was carried out by extremist groups,’ Rajshahi Metropolitan Police commissioner Mohammad Shamsuddin told AFP.

Shamsuddin said police had not yet named any suspects but added that the pattern of the attack fitted with previous killings by Islamist militants.

Nahidul Islam, a deputy commissioner of police, said Siddique was involved in cultural programmes, including music, and set up a school at Bagmara, a former bastion of an outlawed Islamist group, Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

‘The attack is similar to the ones carried out on (atheist) bloggers in the recent past,’ Islam said.

Not the first case

Karim is not the only teacher of the university who was killed. Two years back, Shafiul Islam Lilon, a professor of social science at the same university, was hacked to death near his house in the Chauddapai area of Rajshahi city.

Earlier, on 24 December 2004, Dr Md Yunus, a professor of economics, was hacked to death while jogging in the Binodpur area near the campus.

On 1 February 2006, Professor S Taher of the Department of Geology and Mining went missing from his residence in the teachers’ quarters. His body was found in a sewer outside his residence two days later. 

Deadly attacks continue

Homegrown Islamist militants have been blamed for a number of murders of secular bloggers since 2013, the most recent being in the capital Dhaka early this month.

Police said that in each of the attacks unidentified assailants hacked the victim to death with machetes or cleavers.

Eight members of banned Islamist group Ansarullah Bangla Team, including a top cleric who is said to have founded the group, were convicted late last year for the murder of atheist blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider in February 2013.

The recent killings have sparked outrage at home and abroad, with international rights groups demanding that the secular government protect freedom of speech in the Muslim-majority country.

Ansar al-Islam, a Bangladesh branch of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, this month claimed responsibility for the murder of 26-year-old Nazimuddin Samad, a law student who was killed on the streets of Dhaka, according to US monitoring group SITE.

Bangladesh authorities have consistently denied that international Islamist networks such as Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group, which recently claimed responsibility for the murders of minorities and foreigners, are active in the country.