A Hindu tailor was hacked to death while sitting outside his shop in Tangail, Bangladesh on Saturday. This is the latest in a series of killings in the country that have targeted minority groups and dissident voices. Police said assailants came on a motorcycle and attacked Nikhil Joarder, who was in his early 50s.

While the circumstances around his death are unclear, police are investigating the religion angle. According to Al Jazeera, Hoarder had spent three weeks in jail for "hurting religious sentiments" after local Muslims complained he had made comments about Prophet Muhammad. Police are also investigating whether this could be a case of family dispute.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the killing online, but this could not be verified. Authorities had repeatedly denied that the terror group is active in the country.

The killing comes a week after a senior editor working with Bangladesh's first LGBT magazine Roopbaan, Xulhaz Mannan, was killed along with his friend Tanay Mojumdar in Dhaka. In this case, al-Qaeda had claimed the murders. On April 23, a university professor was murdered near his home in the northwestern city of Rajshahi.

There has been a rise in the deaths of religious minorities, secular writers and activists in Bangladesh over the last year. In 2015, four secular bloggers were killed in similar fashion.