Student activist, who spoke out for atheism, hacked to death in Bangladesh

A student activist has died after being hacked and shot as he was walking with a friend in the capital of Bangladesh.

Police in Dhaka said at least three men riding on a single motorbike carried out the killing on

Wednesday night.

No group immediately claimed responsibility.

Officers suspect 28-year-old Nazimuddin Samad was targeted for his outspoken atheism in the Muslim majority country, and for supporting a 2013 movement to demand capital punishment for war crimes involving the country's independence war against Pakistan in 1971.

The killing follows a string of similar attacks last year, when at least five secular bloggers and publishers were killed, allegedly by radical Islamists.