A senior editor at Bangladesh's first LGBT magazine Roopbaan has been hacked to death in the capital Dhaka, the latest in a series of religiously-motivated killings in the country.

SEE ALSO: Bangladeshi student who criticised radical Islamists is hacked to death

Xulhaz Mannan, 35, was the founder and editor of the magazine and also worked at the US development agency USAID, the Dhaka Tribune reported.

Armed militants disguised as courier workers entered the flat where Mannan lived and killed him along with his friend Tanay Mojumdar.

A security guard told the Dhaka Tribune that five to six youths got into the house claiming they had parcels for the activist. But half an hour later he heard shouting and shooting from the flat and rushed into the scene.

"The assailants then attacked me with knives," he said from Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he's being treated for injuries.

Mannan, who had been behind an annual Rainbow Rally, received a Superior Honor Award in 2014 from ambassador Dan Mozena for his contribution to the US mission in Dhaka.

Mannan (left) with ambassador Dan Mozena Image: Xulhaz mannan/Facebook

Marcia Bernicat, the US ambassador to Bangladesh, condemned the killing. “I am devastated by the brutal murder of Xulhaz Mannan and another young Bangladeshi,” she told the Guardian.

“We abhor this senseless act of violence and urge the government of Bangladesh in the strongest terms to apprehend the criminals behind these murders,” she added.

The killing comes after a university teacher was killed by suspected Islamist militants.

Earlier in April, a Bangladeshi law student who railed against Islamism on his Facebook page was hacked to death in Dhaka.

Nazimuddin Samad, 28, was on a list of targets, along with 83 atheist bloggers, which a group of radical Islamist drew up and delivered to Bangladesh's interior ministry.

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