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A senior editor at Bangladesh’s first LGBT magazine Roopbaan and leading gay rights activist has been hacked to death in the capital Dhaka. He was killed today Monday, April 25, Dhaka Tribune reports.
Julhaz Mannan, 35, (pictured with ambassador Dan Mozena) was the founder and editor of the magazine and also worked at the US development agency USAID.
The killing comes two days after a university lecturer was hacked to death by suspected Islamist militant.
According to Dhaka Tribune, armed militants disguised as courier workers entered the flat where Mannan lived and killed him along with his friend Tanay Mojumdar.
A security guard told the Dhaka Tribune that five to six youths got into the house claiming they had parcels for the activist. But half an hour later he heard shouting and shooting from the flat and rushed into the scene.
“The assailants then attacked me with knives,” he said from Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he’s being treated for injuries.
Mannan, who had been behind an annual Rainbow Rally, received a Superior Honor Award in 2014 from ambassador Dan Mozena for his contribution to the US mission in Dhaka.
Marcia Bernicat, the US ambassador to Bangladesh, condemned the killing. Speaking to the Guardian, she said:
“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.”