Asha Moni wife of murdered Bangladeshi blogger Niloy Chakrabarti outside her home yesterday.

Agencies/Dhaka


Dhaka vowed yesterday to hunt down the killers of secular blogger Niloy Chakrabarti who became the fourth such writer to be murdered in Bangladesh by suspected Islamist militants this year.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the nation’s intelligence agencies went straight to work after a gang of machete-armed attackers hacked the blogger to death at his home in the capital on Friday.
“We hope we’ll catch the killers soon. They’ll be hunted down,” the minister told AFP, adding that the perpetrators appeared to have been well-prepared for the assault.
Police confirmed Chakrabarti, 30, was murdered at his home in the capital’s Goran neighbourhood by a group of four people who had pretended to look for a place to rent.
Asha Moni, wife of the slain blogger, later told reporters that one of the men attacked her husband shouting slogans.
She has filed a murder case against “four unidentified attackers” over the killing, local police chief Mustafiz Bhuiyan told AFP.
The Bangladesh branch of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), Ansar al-Islam, claimed the murder and warned of more to come, according to monitoring group SITE.
Chakrabarti is the fourth secular blogger to be killed in the Muslim-majority nation since February, when Bangladeshi-born US citizen Avijit Roy was hacked to death in
Dhaka.
Nur Alam, assistant police commissioner in Dhaka, said the killing bore the hallmarks of other bloggers’ murders.
“It seems that it (murder) was carried out by an extremist Islamic group,” he told AFP.
Forensic expert Habibuzzaman Chowdhury, who conducted the autopsy on Chakrabarti, told reporters that multiple attackers had hacked him at least 12 times.
The latest killing sparked outrage as hundreds of secular activists joined protests, decrying a culture of impunity in the country.
Amnesty International said the government had to do more to stop “this spate of savage killings”, while the US state department condemned it as a “cowardly murder”.
The home minister rejected criticism that his government was not doing enough for the safety of secular writers, adding that it was “trying” to protect hundreds of them.
In a Facebook post on May 15, Chakrabarti said he had been followed by two men after protesting the murder of another blogger, Ananta Bijoy Das, but police refused to register his complaint and instead told him to leave the country.
But Khan said the blogger “did not file any general diary (complaint with police)”.
Most secular bloggers have gone into hiding, often using pseudonyms in their posts, and at least seven have fled abroad, according to Canada-based atheist blogger Farid Ahmed, who has helped several of them.
Chakrabarti, who used the pen-name Niloy Neel, wrote against Islamic and other religious fundamentalism on a variety of anti-religion websites and blogs.
Bangladesh is officially a secular country, but more than 90% of its 160mn people are Muslim.
 
All the four blogger killed this year were involved with the Ganajagaran Mancha, a  popular movement demanding maximum penalty for war crimes convicts and outlawing of religion-based politics.
Meanwhile, a 3-member committee has been formed to investigate the allegation against police that they had denied to register a GD (General Diary) when slain Niloy had gone to the police station in May last.
The committee, headed by additional deputy commissioner (ADC) of Motijheel Division Tareq Bin Rashid, was formed yesterday.
Meanwhile, a senior opposition BNP leader has claimed that the current spate of blogger killings was part of a conspiracy by the Awami League led government to showcase to the outside world  that militancy is still active in Bangladesh.    
“The present problem in Bangladesh is not that of militancy or terrorism. It is a political problem related to electionS,” said Khandker Mahbub Hossain, also a leading lawyer, at a discussion at the National Press Club yesterday.
“From the way they (bloggers) had been killed in front of law enforcers, it is clear that there is a conspiracy.
“They (government) want to show to the whole world that militants are active in Bangladesh and this government needs to stay in power to crush them,” said the advisor to BNP chief Khaleda Zia.
“I believe Niloy’s killing is a political ploy. These killings are continuously taking place. Killers were not brought to justice … the motives behind the murders are yet to be found.
“This can only mean that the government is backing the killers,” said Khandker refuting Awami League leaders’ allegations that BNP had ties with the militants, who were involved in the killing of bloggers.
“Their (government) present slogan is: ‘Bangladesh has terrorists, militant groups and fundamentalists and we are the only weapon against them, so come and support us’.”
“The government is using Niloy’s death to show the entire world that Bangladesh is a country of fundamentalists.”
The Supreme Court Bar Association president claimed the government had no ground beneath its feet and it would fall in an “imminent mass uprising”.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday warned that her government will not allow anyone in Bangladesh to do politics over religious sentiment.
“At least, this can’t be done in Bangladesh…we won’t allow this in the country,” she said.
The prime minister was speaking at a function organised by Women and Child Affairs Ministry at Osmani Memorial Auditorium marking the 85th birth anniversary of Begum Fazilatunnesa Mujib, the wife of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was killed along with most of her family members, including Bangabandhu, on the fateful night of August 15, 1975.
She said various incidents are occurring and the government is handling  them. “At least our government is not sitting idle.”
Sheikh Hasina mentioned that the wave of terrorism and militancy that has spread to different parts of the world has also hit Bangladesh.
“We’re trying to check it with an iron hand,” she added.
She said 90% of people in Bangladesh are Muslims. “But, Bangladesh is a non-communal country. This is how the father of the nation fought for independence…we’re building the country and we want it to stay on that path,” she said.
Expressing her sorrow over recent suicide attacks she said: “Are they Muslims? Those who commit suicide and kill other Muslims, how could they be Muslims? Which religion are they protecting?”
She mentioned that the al Qaeda claimed that they are killing bloggers here.
“So where’s the answer to this conflict…Muslims are killing Muslims through suicide attacks, again killing people and bloggers for writing against religion, then which one is real, which one is true, which path people will follow,” she asked.
Significantly, the Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist political party, has condemned the murder of Niloy Chatterji.
Niloy is the fourth blogger to have been murdered this year after Avijit Roy, Oyasiqur Rahman Babu and Ananta Bijoy Das.
“We condemn the murder of a blogger Niloy at his home. This incident proves that the government has totally failed to provide security for the citizens,” read the statement signed by Jamaat’s central executive committee member Hamidur Rahman Azad.
The US Bureau of Federal Investigation (FBI) will assist local detectives to identify the culprits and unearth the motive behind the killing of blogger Niladri Chaterji alias Niloy.
Sources at the detective branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) said an FBI official had contacted a senior DB official yesterday morning over phone expressing their interest to help Bangladeshi  investigators probe the sensational murder incident.
Deputy commissioner (DB-East) Mahbubur Rahman said the FBI offered them assistance in the investigation into the blogger murder.
“After consulting our higher authorities, we’ve already accepted,” he said.
An FBI team is scheduled arrive at the DB headquarters today morning. “We’ll sit at a meeting with them to discuss the technical and technological support we need,” the DC (DB-South) said.
Earlier, the FBI assisted the DB in the killing of blogger Avijit Roy killing. Avijit Roy, son of noted physicist Ajoy Roy and founder of Mukto-Mona blog, was killed and his wife Rafida Afrin Banya injured seriously after unidentified criminals stabbed them on the Dhaka University campus on February 26.