DHAKA: Bangladesh police arrested a university student Sunday over the gruesome murder of a professor one day earlier, a senior officer said, the latest such killing claimed by the Islamic State group.

“We have detained a 21-year-old Rajshahi University student,” Nahidul Islam, deputy police commissioner of the northwestern city of Rajshahi where Saturday's attack occurred, told AFP.

Two assailants on a motorcycle had attacked Rezaul Karim Siddiquee, 58, a professor of English at Rajshahi University on Saturday, slitting his throat and hacking him to death, Rajshahi city police chief Mohammad Shamsuddin had told reporters, quoting witnesses.

Prof Siddiquee was found lying in a pool of blood near his home, where he was apparently waiting for a bus to the university campus about 200 kilometres northwest of Dhaka when he was attacked.

Police said the murder was similar to other recent attacks on secular bloggers by Islamist militants. But fellow university teachers said Prof Siddiquee, while active in cultural events, never spoke or wrote anything about religion or Islam.