From Anisur Rahman

Dhaka: A Hindu lecturer today survived an assassination attempt when suspected Islamists barged into his home and hacked him with lethal weapons, critically injuring him in Bangladesh, the latest in a series of brutal attacks on minorities and secular activists in Muslim-majority nation.

Ripon Chakrabarty, a 50-year-old Mathematics lecturer at the Nazimuddin Government University College, was hacked with lethal weapons by the attackers who stormed his residence this evening in Madaripur in southwestern Bangladesh, police said.

Chakrabarty, who was hacked by three assailants in his head, neck and shoulders, raised an alarm, prompting local residents to grab one of the attackers while others fled.

“The detained attacker is now being questioned 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 said three assailants knocked at Ripon’s house and attacked him soon after he opened the door.

Chakrabarty, who was seriously injured, is being treated at a state-run hospital in southwestern Barisal. He is the only Hindu victim to survive an attack by the Islamists, who have hacked to death four other members from the community in recent months.

Suspected Islamists killed a number of secular activists, 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).

PTI