Source: The Guardian
By Saad Hammadi in Dhaka
Asha Mone has been living in constant fear for her life.
It is eight months since her husband, the Bangladeshi secular blogger Niladry Chattopadhya, was hacked to death, and as the lone witness to his killing, she has confined herself to an undisclosed location out of concern for her own safety.
“I cannot lead a normal life. I am afraid of travelling alone,” she tells the Guardian. “Each new killing is only increasing the sense of fear.”
Chattopadhya, known as Niloy Neel, was killed in August last year at his residence in the Goran area of Dhaka – one in a series of attacks by extremists that have sown fear among the south Asian nation’s liberals.
In the most recent incident, on Monday, Xulhaz Mannan, the founder of Bangladesh’s only LGBT magazine, was hacked to death in Dhaka by a gang who posed as couriers in order to gain access to his apartment in the Kalabagan area of the city. A friend of Mannan was also killed.
Chattopadhya had told the Guardian via email in May 2015 that he was scared of being killed, and that police had not taken his fears seriously.
Categories: Asia, Bangladesh, Domestic Terrorism, Extremism, Secularism, The Muslim Times