Briton Held After Bloggers Hacked To Death

A British man has been arrested over the killings of two atheist bloggers who had been critical of Islamic extremism.

Touhidur Rahman, 58, and two members of illegal Islamist group Ansarullah Bangla Team were detained in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Monday.

Officials believe Rahman is "the main planner" in the killings of Avijit Roy and Ananta Bijoy Das.

Mr Roy, a Bangladeshi-born US citizen living in Atlanta, was hacked to death in Dhaka in February .

His wife and fellow blogger Rafida Bonya Ahmed was injured and is now back in the US.

Militant groups al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent and Ansarullah Bangla Team, also known as Ansar Bangla, claimed responsibility.

Mr Roy's family and friends said he had been threatened for being a prominent voice against religious intolerance - he had described atheism as a "rational concept to oppose any unscientific and irrational belief".

The 43-year-old used to moderate the Mukto-Mona (Free Mind) website, which described itself as a space for "freethinkers, sceptics, atheists and humanists".

Mr Das, 33, a writer for the site, was also killed in a machete attack .

Although Bangladesh is officially secular, the vast majority of its 160 million people identify as Muslims.

Its government has been trying to crack down on hardline groups intent on making the country a sharia-based state.

Two other secular bloggers have been killed this year and others have been forced into hiding.

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