Xulhaz Mannan – the openly gay founding editor of Roopbaan, Bangladesh’s first and only magazine aimed at the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community – was hacked to death with machetes by unidentified assailants posing as couriers to gain entry into his home in Dhaka. Another man identified as Mannan’s friend, Tanay Mojumdar, was also killed. A group linked to Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the murders.
Mannan’s killing was the latest in a series of brutal murders of secular bloggers, activists and intellectuals by suspected Islamic extremists, and it occurred just two days after university professor Rezaul Karim Siddique was hacked to death on the street in the northern Bangladesh town of Rajshahi.