NEW DELHI (AP) – Unidentified assailants fatally stabbed two men in Bangladesh’s capital Monday night, including a gay rights activist who also worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development, police said, in the latest in a series of attacks targeting atheists, moderates and foreigners.
Police said they suspected radical Islamists in the attack, which occurred two days after a university professor was hacked to death. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The victims were identified as USAID employee Xulhaz Mannan, who previously worked as a U.S. Embassy protocol officer, and his friend, Tanay Majumder, according to Mohammed Iqbal, a police officer in Dhaka’s Kalabagan area. Mannan also was an editor of Bangladesh’s first gay rights magazine, Roopbaan.
The U.S. ambassador condemned the murder, just weeks after the U.S. government and numerous rights groups called on the government of the Muslim-majority country to better protect its citizens and secure free speech.
“I am devastated by the brutal murder of Xulhaz Mannan and another young Bangladeshi this evening in Dhaka,” U.S. Ambassador Marcia Bernicat said in a statement. “Xulhaz was more than a colleague to those of us fortunate to work with him at the U.S. Embassy. He was a dear friend.”