Secular writer shot dead in Bangladesh

Dhaka, June 12 

A prominent Bangladeshi writer and publisher was dragged out of a shop and shot by unidentified attackers in central Bangladesh, ending a lull in the killings of secular bloggers and activists in the Muslim-majority country.

Shahzahan Bachchu, 60, an outspoken proponent of secular principles and owner of a publishing house ‘Bishaka Prokashoni’ that specialised in publishing poetry, was gunned down in his ancestral village Kakaldi in Munshiganj last evening by five assailants. Bachchu had gone to meet friends at a shop, when the attackers on two motorcycles came and blasted a crude bomb outside the shop. They then dragged Shahzahan out of the shop and shot him, reports said. — PTI