A Bangladeshi blogger was hacked to death in Dhaka on Monday, the second such attack on a critic of religious fundamentalism in the mainly Muslim country in less than two months.

Three knife-wielding attackers set upon 27-year-old Washiqur Rahman near his home on Monday morning, weeks after the murder of an American atheist blogger in Dhaka triggered international outrage.

Two Bangladeshi workers abducted in Libya by suspected Islamic State militants have been freed after more than two weeks, Dhaka said Wednesday.

They were among a group of nine people including four Filipinos and an Austrian reportedly taken hostage in southern Libya this month in an attack blamed on the jihadist group.

Bangladesh authorities have summoned Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus over a disputed bill for $1.51 million in unpaid taxes, a move analysts saw as a politically motivated move against the micro-credit pioneer. 

Yunus has been at odds with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina since 2007 when he made a brief foray into the country's highly polarized political scene.

Bangladesh's main opposition party accused the security services Monday of abducting its top spokesman after he was allegedly picked up by plain-clothes detectives from a hideout nearly a week ago.

Salahuddin Ahmed took over as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) spokesman in January when his predecessor was arrested for inciting violence at the start of a transport blockade called by the BNP leader Khaleda Zia.

Bangladesh's opposition leader Khaleda Zia vowed Friday to push on with her campaign to topple the government as she struck a defiant note in her first public appearance since being effectively confined to her office.

While Zia remains holed up at her headquarters in Dhaka, authorities allowed her to address the media for the first time since she called for anti-government protests and a transport blockade at the turn of the year, sparking a wave of violence that has killed more than 110 people.

Rescue teams searched Friday for survivors in the rubble after a factory collapsed in Bangladesh, killing at least seven people and sparking fresh criticism over the country's appalling record on workplace safety.

Hundreds of soldiers and emergency personnel worked through the night to clear debris from the site of a half-built cement factory in the port town of Mongla, the area's top administrator Shah Alam Sarder told Agence France Presse.

Five workers were confirmed dead and dozens more are feared trapped after the roof of a half-built cement factory collapsed in southern Bangladesh on Thursday, police and rescuers said.

At least six people are in a critical condition after the accident at a building site in the port city of Mongla, local police chief Jahedur Rahman told AFP.

North Korea apologized to Bangladesh on Monday after one of its diplomats was caught trying to smuggle 27 kilograms of gold into the south Asian country, a Dhaka official told Agence France-Presse.

Son Young Nam -- the first secretary of the North Korean embassy in Dhaka -- tried to sneak in the bullion, worth around $1.7 million, using diplomatic immunity on Friday.

Police charged 18 people Sunday after a frenzied mob stormed a prison and lynched a rape suspect in India's northeast, in an act of vigilante justice condemned by rights groups and political leaders.

Police arrested the men for rioting in Nagaland state, but it was unclear if they were directly involved in stripping and beating to death Syed Farid Khan, whose body was then strung up to a clock tower on Thursday.

Riot police Saturday patrolled a northeastern Indian city after the public lynching of a rape suspect, enforcing a round-the-clock curfew for a second day as the killing was condemned as "barbaric and inhuman".

The 35-year-old suspect, accused of raping a woman multiple times and arrested in late February, was dragged out of prison in Nagaland state by a mob before being beaten to death and strung up to a clock tower on Thursday.