A Bangladesh court yesterday sentenced two students to death for the 2013 murder of a secular blogger, delivering the first convictions over a series of brutal killings that have rocked the nation.
Ahmed Rajib Haider, 35, was hacked to death by machete-wielding attackers in February 2013, in the first of a string of attacks targeting secular writers.
The judge in the fast-track court yesterday found both students and one other man, Maksudul Hasan, guilty of murder and convicted another five people on lesser charges related to Haider’s death. Hasan, 23, was given a life sentence.
One of the two students, who attended one of the country’s top universities, is on the run and were sentenced in absentia.
“Two students of North South University, Faisal bin Nayem and Rezwanul Azad Rana, were sentenced to death. Rana has been a fugitive since the trial began,” prosecutor Mahbubur Rahman said.
Rahman said the two students had been “inspired” by cleric Jashim Uddin Rahmani, 45, who was given five years in prison for abetting the murder.
“I am not satisfied. The judge said it was a pre-planned murder. They should have been given harsher punishments,” he added.
Five more secular bloggers and a publisher have been brutally killed this year, triggering protests and claims that the government is not doing enough to protect dissident writers and activists.
Police say the banned group, Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), was behind the attacks.
Haider, an architect, became a target of the group after he helped launch a massive protest against the leaders of the largest Islamist party, several of whom are accused of war crimes during Bangladesh’s 1971 independence struggle against Pakistan.
Police said Haider had angered the students with his writing on blog sites.
They said Rahmani, an ABT leader, had ordered the murders of other secular bloggers from jail while he was being tried for Haider’s murder.
These include Avijit Roy, a US citizen of Bangladeshi origin. He was killed in February. Haider’s father said the sentences against some of those convicted were too lenient. However, a lawyer for the defendants said they would appeal the verdict.
“In his verdict, the judge admitted there was no eye-witness to the murder. There was no way the two should get death penalty,” Faruque Ahmed said.