Police said the powerful handmade bomb blew the head off his body at about 1:00pm on Mirzapur Road in the latest in a series of journalist killings in the district since 2002.

The 50-year-old journalist, also Khulna-based stringer of BBC and former president of Khulna Press Club, was heading home at Ahsan Ahmed Road by rickshaw. His body was sent to Khulna Medical College Hospital (KMCH) for autopsy.

Police seized bomb splinters, wires and a pencil battery from the scene, some 20 yards off the press club, after the incident that brought city life to a virtual halt. Security was tightened in and around the city, but no-one was arrested until early last night.

Witnesses said a man went to the press club at about 12:30pm and talked to Manik about a personal matter minutes before he boarded a rickshaw to get back home.

The man called Manik from behind -- his rickshaw a few steps ahead -- and another man hurled the bomb at him as soon as he got down from the vehicle. He died instantly. The rickshawpuller fled.

Journalists who were at the press club rushed out on hearing the explosion and found his headless, blood-smeared body on the ground. They took the body to the KMCH.

Police believe the killing was the result of his outspoken, uncompromising stand against law and order downslide in the southwestern district with a long history of outlaw violence.

Local journalists brought out a procession yesterday afternoon in protest at the murder of the prominent reporter, who was also senior staff correspondent of New Age.

"His reports regularly probed … into underground political activities of the region. We consider the attack … an infringement on freedom of expression," says New Age in a press release.

Khulna Press Club called a daylong hartal in the metropolitan city for tomorrow as part of a seven-day programme that includes wearing of black badges, protest rally, mourning procession and hoisting of black flags atop local newspaper offices.

The main opposition Awami League called another daylong hartal for Sunday in the city to protest the murder.

Leaders of political parties, including the ruling BNP, rushed to hospital to pay their last respect to the slain journalist and expressed solidarity with the hartal call and other programmes drawn up at a meeting at 3:30pm by Khulna Press Club with its President Humayun Kabir Balu in the chair.

Khulna district and city units of Puja Udjapan Parishad condemned the murder of Manik, one of parishad leaders.

Manik, also member of Khulna District Bar Association and Vice-chairman of Khulna South Herald School, entered journalism in 1984 and was closely associated with many socio-cultural organisations.

He left behind his parents, wife and two minor daughters.

Senior police officers, including Police Commissioner Mustafizur Rahman, visited the scene and the press club.

Khulna Union of Journalists and Metropolitan Union of Journalists also condemned the killing and demanded arrest of the killers in 24 hours.

Manik joined BBC as a stringer in 1994 and now-closed Ekushey TV as its divisional correspondent in 2000.

The senior crime reporter of Dainik Purbanchal, Shaikh Haroon-ar-Rashid, was gunned down at Mujjunni under Khalishpur Police Station in March 2002 and the Dainik Anirvan crime reporters Nahor Ali and Shukur Hossain were murdered in Dumuria the same year.