DHAKA: Two people, among them a leading gay rights activist, were hacked to death at an apartment in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Monday, police said. The murders are latest in a series of attacks on minorities in the Muslimmajority nation.

`Unidentified attackers entered an apartment at Kalabagan and hacked two people to death. Another person was injured,` Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Maruf Hossain Sorder said.

He did not identify the dead, but gay rights activists confirmed that one of them was an editor at Roopbaan, the country`s only magazine for the LGBT community.

`He was a member of the editorial board of Roopbaan, an advisory member of the magazine said.

The United States ambassador to Bangladesh Marcia Bernicat condemned the killing, saying one of the victims was a Bangladeshi national working for the US embassy in Dhaka.

`I am devastated by the brutal murder of Xulhaz Mannan and another young Bangladeshi,` she said.

`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 Roopbaan editor and some of his friends launched the magazine two years ago and were behind an annual Rainbow Rally which since 2014 has been held on April 14, Bengali New Year.

But police this year banned the rally as part of widespread security measures.

Law-enforcers arrested and released four LGBT activists earlier this month after they tried to hold the rally.-AFP