The recent spate of gruesome killings of bloggers critical of Islam—Bangladesh’s state religion—is a timely reminder of the potential perils that rights and development activists face in this country as they navigate an increasingly intolerant and more hazardous landscape. In just over a month, two bloggers were hacked to death in public places, following three similar attacks in 2013, in which one blogger died. A decade back, a famous author also fell victim to a similar attack for his critical views on Islam. Indeed, over the last decade, Bangladesh saw a rise in the number of large and small militant Islamist organizations, who