Xulhaz Mannan, the founder of Bangladesh’s only lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) magazine is one of many to be hacked to death in Bangladesh, where several other academics and bloggers have been violently murdered.
He was attacked in the capital, Dhaka, as reported by the Police, by a gang posing as couriers to gain entrance to his apartment in the Kalabagan area of the city.
The officer in charge, Mohammad Iqbal said, “A person came with a box identifying himself as courier service personnel. Xulhaz took him upstairs to his flat.”
Iqbal confirmed that about six people entered the apartment building and hacked Mannan and his colleague to death in the first-floor flat. Two other individuals were extremely wounded.
Marcia Bernicat, the US ambassador to Bangladesh, denounced the killing, “I am devastated by the brutal murder of Xulhaz Mannan and another young Bangladeshi. We abhor this senseless act of violence and urge the government of Bangladesh in the strongest terms to apprehend the criminals behind these murders.”
This incident is one of many, these incidents becoming a common occurrence across cities in Bangladesh. Two days previous to this incident, Rezaul Karim Siddiqui, an English professor aged 58 was hacked to death with machetes as he walked to the bus station neighboring his home in North-Western city of Rajshahi.
Homosexual relations are reprimanded in Bangladesh which has led to LGBT activists being forced into banishment.
Rashed Zaman, a professor of international relations at the University of Dhaka, said, “this is unacceptable. People may have belief and orientation but at the end of the day everyone has their own individual rights to live the life they want.”
