Isis claims responsibility for hacking to death a tailor in Bangladesh

The militant group said it had carried out the attack on the 52-year-old who was previously accused of blasphemy

Isis has claimed responsibility for hacking to death a tailor outside his shop in Bangladesh.

The militant group said it was behind the killing of 52-year-old Nikhil Chandra Joarder, who was working at his shop in Tangail when two men on motorbikes rode up to his premises, dragged him outside and hacked him to death.

“They came on a motorcycle and attacked him as he sat on a roadside. They hacked him on his head, neck and hand,” AFP reported Aslam Khan, deputy chief of Tangail district police, as saying.

A possible motive for the attack is that the victim had been jailed in 2012 for blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammad after a complaint was made to police, although when the complaint was withdrawn he was released, having served several weeks in prison.

However, police are yet to draw any conclusions and are also said to be investigating whether the murder could be linked to a dispute of some sort.

Attacks against minorities by extremists in Bangladesh are on the rise, with several activists, the editor of the country’s first LBGT magazine and a Hindu priest hacked to death since February.

Following the increase in attacks on religious minorities, Bangladesh was reported to be considering dropping Islam as the country’s official religion, although the idea is unlikely to gain popular support.

The government has denied there is an Isis presence in the country, but Islamist groups Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh and Ansarullah Bangla Team are believed to have carried out at least seven attacks on foreign and minority people in Bangladesh in the past year.