Shahjahan Bachchu was ambushed late yesterday afternoon in a pharmacy in Munshiganj, a district just to the south of the capital, Dhaka. After a homemade bomb was exploded outside the pharmacy to create a panic, four or five masked gunmen stormed in, pulled Bachchu out, shot him four times and then fled on two motorcycles. He died on the spot.
A keen poet and editor of the weekly Amader Bikrampur as well as a blogger, Bachchu was well known as an outspoken champion of freethinking, especially on religious issues. His defence of religious tolerance and atheism made him a target of Jihadi groups and Muslim fundamentalists.
He had been getting death threats for years from Sunni extremists, which had forced him to often change his place of residence. [Reporters Without Borders] Read more
