Dhaka: A Hindu lecturer on Wednesday survived an assassination attempt in southwestern Bangladesh when suspected Islamists barged into his home and attacked him with lethal weapons, wounding him seriously, the latest in a series of attacks on minorities and secular activists.
The attackers stormed the residence of Ripon Chakrabarty, a Mathematics lecturer at the Nazimuddin Government University College in Madaripur, and attacked him with lethal weapons this evening, police said. The residents at the neighbourhood grabbed one of the attackers while others fled from the scene.
"The detained attacker is now being grilled in our custody. We suspect he could be a member of a militant group," Madaripur police superintendent Sarwar Hossain told PTI.
A police sub-inspector told reporters that three assailants knocked at Ripon's house and attacked him soon after he opened the door. Ripon is being treated at a state-run hospital in southwestern Barisal.
Suspected Islamists killed a number of secular activists, four Hindus and other minorities across the country in recent months, prompting authorities to launch a nationwide anti-militant clampdown since Friday.
Bangladesh authorities have detained nearly 12,000 people in a nationwide crackdown to halt a spate of deadly attacks on minorities and secular writers in the Muslim-majority nation. Some of those arrested were linked with outlawed Jamaatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh.
"If tallied, the number of people detained in the crackdown since Thursday midnight stands at 11,648. Around 145 among them are suspected militants mostly belonging to JMB," a police headquarters spokesman said.
Authorities are under mounting international pressure to halt the violence, which in the past three years have claimed nearly 50 people - Hindus, Christians and secular bloggers - many of them by machete-wielding attackers.
Though most of the attacks were claimed by the Islamic State or its affiliates and other similar extremist groups, the Bangladesh government has repeatedly dismissed the claims and said the attacks were carried out by homegrown outfits linked to the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
