A law student who posted pro-atheism comments on facebook has been murdered, Bangladeshi police said, in the latest incident in a series of killings of secular activists and bloggers in the country.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Nurul Amin said at least three men riding on a single motorbike carried out the killing on Wednesday night. No group immediately claimed responsibility.

Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury, reporting from Dhaka, said 28-year-old Nazimuddin Samad was the seventh secular activist who has been killed. 

“The men on the motorbike first hit him with machetes. Then they shot him to make sure he was dead,” Chowdhury said.

Police suspected that Samad had been targeted for his outspoken atheism in the Muslim-majority country, and for supporting a 2013 movement to demand capital punishment for war crimes involving the country’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971.

Source – AL-JAZEERA