Suspected ISIS killed Sufi leader in Bangladesh

Dhaka: A local Sufi leader was hacked to death in Bangladesh in a suspected Islamist killing, police said on Saturday. The incident took place two weeks after the Islamic State group claimed the murder of a liberal professor in the same northwestern district.

Mohammad Shahidullah, 65, went missing after leaving home on Friday morning, until villagers last night found his body in a pool of blood in a mango grove in Rajshahi.

“He was not a famous Sufi. But there could be a possibility that he was killed by Islamist militants,” Rajshahi district police chief Nisharul Arif told AFP.

“He was slaughtered from his neck and there are also some deep gashes in his throat,” Abdur Razzak, a local police official said, adding that “he had scores of followers in a nearby district”.

Some of the attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State group and a local branch of al-Qaida, although Dhaka denies the transnational groups have any presence in the country.