The father of a schoolgirl and a known Islamist militant had urged the killing of a French teacher who was beheaded for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, France’s interior minister said Monday.

“They apparently launched a fatwa against the teacher,” minister Gerald Darmanin told Europe 1 radio of the two men, who are among 11 people being held over the attack by a young Chechen man.

According to Le Parisien newspaper, an 18-year-old Chechen man with a knife beheaded a professor who taught caricatures in a school. Although, as per AP reports, the suspected attacker was shot dead about 600 metres from the scene.

Samuel Paty, 47, was seen showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to pupils in class was a history and geography professor at the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine outside Paris. He was a staunch preacher of freedom of expression. The victim on his way home was attacked on Friday afternoon.