Secular Blogger Killed In Machete Attack

Machete-wielding assailants have hacked to death a prominent Bangladeshi-American blogger known for speaking out against religious extremism.

Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-born US citizen, was attacked as he walked through Bangladesh's capital of Dhaka with his wife, police said.

Mr Roy's wife, Rafida Ahmed, who is also a blogger, was seriously injured. It was the latest in a series of attacks on secular writers in Bangladesh in recent years.

Police retrieved two blood-stained machetes from the site.

The militant group Ansar Bangla 7 claimed responsibility for the attack, police said.

Mr Roy "was the target because of his crime against Islam", the group said on Twitter.

Mr Roy was a prominent voice against religious intolerance, and his family and friends say he had been threatened for his writings.

"Islamist radicals are behind my son's murder," Ajay Roy told reporters on Friday.

Mr Roy had founded a popular Bengali-language blog, Mukto-mona, or Free Mind, which featured articles on scientific reasoning and religion.

"We mourn but we are not out," read a black banner on the site.

He defended atheism in a January posting on Facebook, calling it "a rational concept to oppose any unscientific and irrational belief".

Islamic extremism has made few inroads in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people, but there have been a series of similar attacks in recent years blamed on militants, and the government has ordered a crackdown.

Blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider was killed in 2013 in a similar attack near his home in Dhaka after he led a protest demanding capital punishment for Islamist leaders convicted of war crimes during Bangladesh's war for independence.