Dhaka: Six cut wounds were found on the body of slain Jagriti Prokashony publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan who was hacked to death by miscreants on Saturday, the autopsy report says.

After performing the autopsy, Dr Kazi Mohammad Abu Shama, acting chief of the Forensic Department of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), told reporters that six stab cuts, three of them deep, were found in Dipan’s neck.  

His spinal cord was found severed, added Shama.  

He also said the attackers used heavy and sharp tools in the killing incident.

After the autopsy was done, the body of Dipan, also son of former professor of Dhaka University’s Bangla department Abul Kashem Fazlul Haq was handed over to his family members at about 11:30am on Sunday.

Faisal Arefin Dipan was stabbed to death by miscreants on the second floor of Aziz Super Market in the city’s Shahbagh sometime after 2:00pm on Saturday.

Ramna zone assistant commissioner of police Shibly Noman said Dipan was found lying in a pool of blood in his publication house in the evening.

He was first taken to Square Hospital and then shifted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) where doctors declared him dead at about 7:15pm.  

Earlier in the day, Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, publisher of ‘Shuddhoswar Prokashoni’ and two writers -- Sudeep Kumar Roy Barman alias Ranadeep Basu and Tareque Rahim -- were stabbed by some unidentified miscreants in the city’s Lalmatia area.

They are now undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. 

Fears of Islamist violence have been rising in Muslim-majority Bangladesh after four atheist bloggers were murdered this year, allegedly by Islamist hardliners. 

Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attacks, along with the four earlier ones, branding the victims ‘blasphemers’ and warning any writers who criticiseIslam of being next in line.

Police said Faisal Arefin Dipan, 43, was killed in his third-floor publishing office in central Dhaka on Saturday, with his attackers padlocking the door from the outside as they left.

Dipan published several books by Avijit Roy, a US national of Bangladeshi origin, who was hacked to death outside a book fair in February in the capital.

Hours before Dipan’s murder, three unidentified attackers entered another publishing office, Shuddhaswar, and attacked its owner along with two secular bloggers, police said.

Shuddhaswar owner Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, 43, whose condition is still serious, also previously brought out several of Roy’s books including one on homosexuality.

‘It’s a failure of the government that it has not been able to prosecute the killers,’ said Imran Sarker, head of a secular bloggers’ group, which organised the protests.

‘There is a climate of impunity in which these militants now operate brazenly,’ he said.

Police said both of Saturday’s attacks bore the hallmarks of the earlier ones on bloggers which were blamed on banned local group Ansarullah Bangla Team. Police could not confirm if AQIS was behind the latest ones.

Bloggers say about a dozen secular writers have fled the country in fear following this year’s killings, while some have faced threats themselves from Islamists. 

Criminals have targeted secularist writers in Bangladesh in recent years, as the government has cracked down on Islamist groups seeking to turn the South Asian nation of 160 million people into a sharia-based state.

Four secular bloggers have been hacked to death this year for writing critically about Islamist militancy.

At least 15 members of an al Qaeda inspired group Ansarullah Bangla Team, including a British citizen, have been arrested since August, after blogger Niloy Chatterjee was killed by a group of attackers armed with machetes.

The country has also been rocked by attacks in which two foreigners were shot dead and a Shi'ite shrine in Dhaka was bombed.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has blamed local hardline Islamist groups for the earlier attacks and launched a crackdown after facing Western criticism of failing to stop the bloodshed.

Bangladesh has also been rocked by the recent murders of an Italian aid worker and a Japanese farmer, while Dhaka’s main Shiite shrine was bombed last weekend, killing two people and wounded dozens.

The government has accused its political opponents of orchestrating those attacks to destabilise the country, rejecting the Islamic State group’s claim of responsibility.

Bangladesh prides itself on being a mainly moderate Muslim nation, but the gruesome killings along with the Shiite shrine bombing have heightened fears for minorities.