Bangladesh Sentences 4 to Death for Blogger’s Murder

DHAKA, Bangladesh — A particular tribunal in jap Bangladesh introduced on Wednesday that 4 males had been sentenced to loss of life for the 2015 homicide of a blogger and author who had promoted secularism within the Muslim-majority nation.

The sufferer, Ananta Bijoy Das, 32, a banker by occupation who wrote for the platform Free Thoughts, was amongst a number of bloggers and writers fatally attacked that 12 months. He was chased down within the jap metropolis of Sylhet by 4 males, who stabbed him to loss of life on a avenue near his residence and left his physique close to a pond.

“We’re proud of the decision,” Somor Bijoy Shee Shakhor, Mr. Das’s brother-in-law, instructed The New York Instances. “We can not get Ananta again. The one factor we would like is justice.”

Simply 10 weeks earlier than Mr. Das’s loss of life in Could 2015, Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-American who was the moderator of Free Thoughts, had additionally been killed, by machete-wielding assailants as he was leaving a e-book truthful in Dhaka, the capital.

And 5 weeks after Mr. Roy’s loss of life, one other blogger, Oyasiqur Rahman, was killed by three males with machetes in Dhaka.

Later that 12 months, Faisal Arefin Dipan, Mr. Roy’s writer, was killed by a bunch of assailants in his Dhaka workplace.

The killings despatched a chilling message to secular bloggers in Bangladesh, the place a bitter cultural battle has raged over whether or not the nation is, or must be, a Muslim state.

A militant group, Ansarullah Bangla Group, claimed duty for the deaths of Mr. Das, Mr. Dipan and Mr. Roy. The group was banned in Could 2015.

On Feb. 10, 2021, an antiterrorism particular tribunal in Dhaka sentenced eight to loss of life for killing Mr. Dipan.

Six days later, the tribunal sentenced 5 extra folks to loss of life and one other particular person to lifetime imprisonment for the killing of Mr. Roy.

A verdict within the trial of these accused of killing Mr. Rahman has not but been launched.

All of these discovered responsible within the killings of Mr. Das, Mr. Dipan and Mr. Roy have been a part of the Ansarullah Bangla Group. In line with the BBC, the tribunal in Mr. Das’s homicide stated that his killers had believed they have been performing as a part of a “jihad” to cease the writers producing something that the group interpreted as being towards Islamic beliefs.

Nurul Amin Biplob, a choose on the tribunal, in Sylhet, introduced the penalty on the 4 discovered responsible, Abul Khaer Rashid Ahmed, Abul Hossain, Faisal Ahmed and Harunur Rashid. Solely Abul Khaer Rashid Ahmed is in custody; the opposite three are at massive.

The prosecutor, Muminur Rahman Titu, stated, “Justice has been served for Ananta.”

“The tribunal has ordered the police to arrest the convicts who’re on the run,” he added. “We count on it will likely be finished quickly.”