India takes up with Bangladesh IS death threat to Ramakrishna Mission

New Delhi, June 17  India on Friday said it had raised with Bangladesh the death threat from suspected Islamic State militants to a priest at the Ramakrishna Mission in Dhaka.

The Bangladesh government has assured "full support and protection" and has beefed up security at the Ramakrishna Mission premises, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said in a statement here.

He said the Indian high commission in Dhaka "had contacted both the Bangladesh police and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs".

"We are also in a direct contact with the Ramakrishna Mission in Dhaka," Swarup said, adding that the Bangladesh government has strengthened police presence around the office of the Indian spirituality movement.

Swarup said the First Secretary, Consular, in the Indian High Commission visited the Ramakrishna Mission on Friday to review the security at the complex.

This comes a day after a priest of the mission filed a complaint with police that he received a letter from the Islamic State Bangladesh chapter threatening his life.

The letter, according to the Daily Star, reads: “You are Hindus, Bangladesh is an Islamic country. You cannot preach Hindu religion in the country. Go to India. Otherwise, you will be hacked to death."

Bangladesh has launched a nationwide crackdown on the militants after targeted killing of minority leaders continued unabashed across the country.

Recently, a volunteer of a Hindu ashram, Nityaranjan Pandey, was hacked to death in a series of such killings in Bangladesh. Pandey was associated with Sree Sree Thakur Anukulchandra Satsang Ashram in Pabna Sadar, Rajshahi, of Bangladesh.

The Islamic State-affiliated militant groups have claimed most of these killings even as the Bangladesh government has been repeatedly dismissing the presence of the global terror group in the country. It says that such attacks are carried out by homegrown militants.

Some 12,000 people linked with terrorist groups have been arrested in the police crackdown on militants this year.