LGBT mag editor, friend hacked to death [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

LGBT mag editor, friend hacked to death

Local April 26, 2016

The country’s first LGBT magazine Roopban’s one of the editors Xulhaz Mannan and his theatre activist friend Khandaker Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy were hacked to death by a group of youths at Xulhaz’s Kalabagn apartment in the capital on Monday.
This is the second attack within three days after Rajshahi University professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee was killed in a similar attack near his house in the north-western city on Saturday.
On Monday, the youths, aged about 25-years, introducing as courier servicemen hacked Xulhaz and Mahbub to death in the afternoon.
None claimed the responsibility for the killings.
The attackers also injured two others — policeman
Momtaj Hossain and security guard Parvej Mollah of the building where Xulhaz used to live over five years along with his mother and domestic aide.
Xulhaz previously worked as a protocol officer for a former US ambassador to Bangladesh and worked at USAID.
Xulhaz, the youngest brother of BLI securities limited managing director Minhaz Mannan Emon, had been behind an annual Rainbow Rally, which since 2014 has been held on April 14, Bangla New Year.
Roopbaan was launched in 2014 to promote greater acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in Bangladesh.
‘Roopbaan is number one reason for why he was targeted…It is a militant attack,’ said Detective Branch additional commissioner Sanwar Hossain.

USAID employee

Lawmen inspect the house where USAID employee Xulhaz Mannan and his friend who were hacked to death at Lake Circus of Kalabagan in Dhaka on Monday. — Sony Ramany

‘Six of them were detained on April 14 while they were trying to hold Rainbow Rally,’ he said.
Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub, who worked with theatre group Lokanatya Dal, were found killed in the living room and a bed room respectively on the first floor of the six-storey building at about 5:45pm.
The injured security guard of the building, Parvej Mollah, told reporters at Dhaka Medical College Hospital that a group of youths carrying a ‘parcel’ came to the house and looked for Xulhaz.
Parvej said that he went to the first floor to check whether Xulhaz was expecting any parcel.
He said the youths hacked him, entered the apartment and attacked Xulhaz.
Parvej could not recall next episode as he was rushed to hospital with injuries in the head.
Police investigators said that they came to know that Xulhaz returned to his apartment at about 5:00pm and Mambub joined him after 15 minutes.
‘At about 5:30pm the attackers entered the building,’ Kalabagan police sub-inspector Ansar Ali.
Police investigators said that they found Xulhaz lying on pool of blood in the living room while Mahbub was found lying in a bedroom. Both were hacked in the head only.
A neighbour told New Age six-seven youths — few wearing deep blue shirts and few others deep paste colour shirts — with backpack were leaving the building and chanted ‘Allahu Akbar.’
One of them was brandishing a small firearm, the woman said, adding, ‘They were looking like salespersons of any company.’
They left the place walking, she said.
Ramna police deputy commissioner Jashim Uddin said that one of his police officers, Momtaj Hossain, who was on duty nearby, tried to resist the attackers and came under attack too.
The police investigators said the attackers wrapped some green coconut shells inside the parcel brought to the apartment.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Asaduzzaman Miah said that it was a ‘targeted killing’ that was committed in five minutes and investigation was launched to verify whether it was militant act.
Criminal Investigation Department, Police Bureau of Investigation, Rapid Action Battalion and other agencies concerned were seen working at the crime scene.
The bodies were sent to Dhaka Medical College morgue later in the night.
Xulhaz hailed from Chandpur and was cousin of former foreign minister Dipu Moni.
The family of Xulhaz could not found available for comments while Mahbub’s relatives, who identified the body, could not say why he was in Xulhaz’s apartment.
The Shahbagh police officials said that they had released six LGBT members on April 14 after an undertaking as homosexual relations were criminalised under the Penal Code.
The United States urged Bangladesh in the strongest terms to arrest the criminals behind the murders of Xulhaz Mannan and his friend.
‘We abhor this senseless act of violence and urge the government of Bangladesh in the strongest terms to apprehend the criminals behind these murders,’ said US ambassador in Dhaka Marcia Bernicat in a statement.
The US ambassador said that she was ‘devastated’ by the brutal murder of Xulhaz Mannan and another young Bangladeshi.
Amnesty International in a immediate statement said that the Bangladeshi police needed to guarantee the protection of the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community, not harass them or threaten them with arrest as they were doing.
‘The brutal killing today of an editor of an LGBTI publication and his friend, days after a university professor was hacked to death, underscores the appalling lack of protection being afforded to a range of peaceful activists in the country,’ said Amnesty International’s South Asia director Champa Patel.