He didn't have enemy

When Nayantara was requested to speak a few words about the killing of her elder brother, a Hindu priest, she took the microphone and described him as someone having no enemy.

"My brother was a very peaceful man. He never quarrelled with people. He was also not involved in politics. He was very pious," she said.

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"But they didn't leave my brother. They killed him very brutally when he just started his offerings at the temple. I want to see stringent punishment of the killers."

Nayantara, 45, could not speak more; she collapsed.

The woman from Debiganj upazila of Panchagarh was addressing a human chain in front of the capital's Jatiya Press Club, organised to protest the killing of Jogeswar Dasadhikari, 50.

She was taken to a hospital.

Unidentified criminals slit the throat of Jogeswar at Sri Sri Shonto Gaurio temple of Shonapota in Debiganj just after dawn on Sunday and fled the scene firing shots and exploding homemade bombs, which also injured two devotees.

He is the latest victim of a recent string of attacks on clerics and prayer houses of minorities in Bangladesh in the last few months.

Different organisations of Hindus formed the human chain yesterday, demanding that the government arrest the killers and give them a harsh punishment to stop recurrence.

They termed the incident an attack on the country's independence and communal harmony.

"It is very sad that I have to take to the street today to cry for our rights in this independent country after 46 years of the Liberation War. Our men are being killed, our women raped," alleged artist and freedom fighter Manoranjan Ghoshal.

He said the anti-liberation forces were doing these as part of an "international conspiracy" to destroy the government's image.

Manoranjan Ghoshal urged the home minister and law enforcers to foil the conspiracy and called for the prime minister's intervention in finding the killers immediately.

Bangladesh Jatiya Hindu Mohajote Secretary General Palash Kandi Dey said Hindus must be aware so that none could politicise the issue.

Parimal Chandra Guha, former vice president of Supreme Court Bar Association, and Jayanti Roy, president, and Preo Bala Biswas, general secretary, of the women unit of Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Oikya Parishad, among others, also spoke. 

Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad declared to form a human chain across the country on February 27 to protest the killing.