Myanmar nationals among 3 arrested for monk's murder in B'desh

Three persons, including two Myanmar nationals, were today arrested in Bangladesh in connection with the brutal killing of a 70-year-old Buddhist monk inside a remote monastery, police said on the latest attack on minorities in the Muslim-majority nation.

Two Rohingyas - Abdur Rahim, 25, and Md Zia, 26 - besides Sa Mong Chak, 35, were picked up from their homes in different areas this morning, Naikhyongchharhi police station officer- in-charge Abul Khayer said.

The development comes a day after Mawng Shoi Wuu, chief of the monastery located in Bandarban hill district's remote and rugged Naikkhangchari area, was found with his throat slit, in a killing that bears the hallmark of previous murders of intellectuals and minorities by Islamists in the country.

Mawng used to live alone at the monastery Chak Nirvana Bouddha Kyang, situated some 230 metres away from the nearest village Uppar Chak Para where his family members live.

His family filed a police case over the murder yesterday.

The two Rohingya men were seen loitering near the monastery on Thursday following which the monk told his son about the two unidentified men and that he was feeling unsafe since then, the Daily Star quoted Khayer as saying.

He had also told his son that 'something unexpected will happen to me and you should stay alert'.

Today's arrests coincide with the nabbing of a suspected Islamist militant over the hacking to death of the country's first gay magazine editor and his friend here on April 25.

Bangladesh has been reeling under a series of systematic assaults in recent weeks especially targeting minorities, secular bloggers, intellectuals and foreigners.

The monk's killing comes exactly a week after a 65-year- old Muslim Sufi preacher was hacked to death in a similar attack by unidentified machete-wielding assailants in northwestern Rajshahi city.

A liberal professor was brutally hacked to death last month by machete-wielding ISIS militants who slit his throat near his home in Rajshahi city, and just two days later, the gay magazine editor was brutally murdered along with a friend in his flat in Dhaka.

On April 30, a Hindu tailor was also hacked to death by machete-wielding ISIS militants in his shop in central Bangladesh.

The ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Indian Peninsula have claimed responsibility for some of the attacks though the government denies their presence in Bangladesh.