BSS, Chittagong :A Chittagong court yesterday ordered to send the arrested Hefajat-e Islam nayeb-e-ameer Mufti Izharul Islam Chowdhury to jail in three cases.The court of Chittagong Metropolitan Magistrate Abdul Quader passed the order after police produced Izharul before the court in connection with three cases filed for a deadly explosion at his (Izhar) madrasa.Foyzur Rahman, Assailant Commissioner (Bandar) of the Detective Branch (DB) of theHowever, Hizb ut-Tahrir leader Shafiur Rahman Farabi had called Niloy anti-Islam in a blog in August 2013.On August 3 this year, Niloy in a Facebook post wrote it: “My name is on the hit list of Farabi Hujur! Oh Almighty, save me.”But, the law enforcement agencies could not yet arrest the masterminds behind the gruesome killings of bloggers and freethinkers, although they repeatedly claimed that militant outfits had links with the murders.It began with the killing of blogger and Ganajagoran Mancha activist Rajiv Haider on 15 February 2013 in front of his home in Mirpur, Dhaka. He was hacked to death. Police submitted charge sheets against eight persons, including head of Ansarullah Bangla Team Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahman. Seven of them, including Jasim Uddin, are in jail. area on February 26 this year. Avijit’s father former Professor of Dhaka University Ajay Roy, filed a case with the Shahbagh Police Station. On March 2, Shafiur Rahman alias Farabi was arrested from Jatrabari and handed over to the Detective Branch (DB) of police. He was taken on remand twice, but there has been no progress in the case since.Professor Ajay Roy said the media yesterday, “I do not know of any progress in Avijit killing case. I will go to the DB office soon,though I don’t think they have any new information.”Officer in charge of the case’s investigations, DB’s Deputy Commissioner Mashruqur Rahman Khaled said, “We have not been able to make any further arrests. FBI also investigated the killing, but we have not received their report as yet. We have attached utmost importance to the case.”Blogger Oyasiqur Rahman was killed on March 26 in South Begumbari, Tejgaon of the city. A group of hijras transgender persons, local people and the police managed to catch two of the killers, Zikrullah and Ariful Islam. They were taken on remand twice. DB says that five of them had attempted to kill Oyasiqur Rahman on 24 March, but the police nabbed one of them, Saiful. So their plan had been thwarted then. No progress has been made in the Oyasiqur Rahman case.On 12 May, science writer and blogger Ananta Bijoy Das, 32, was killed in the Nurani residential area intersection of Subid Bazar in Sylhet. Ananata’s brother RatneswarDas filed cases again four unidentified assailants. After three weeks, the case was transferred to the police’s criminal investigation department (CID). No progress has been made in this case either.On August 7, murder of Niladri Chattopadhyay, four bloggers have been killed in a span of just seven months. However, investigators have yet to make any visible progress into the killing. He wife Asha Moni filed a case in this connection on Friday night. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal claimed the government did not faile to check attacks on bloggers and law enforcement agencies remain active to identify the militant outfits responsible for those killings.”It is not true that we have failed to stop bloggers’ killings. The militants are very desperate, but we have arrested many of them. We are also taking action against the others,” he told a foreign media on Friday.Referring to the slain blogger Niladri Chattopadhyay, the minister said the militants could kill him taking advantage of the time when the people were saying their Jumma prayers.”We hope to identify and arrest the killers as the DB, RAB and intelligence agencies are working to that end,” he added. Kamal said, police are ensuring security of the bloggers and other citizens when they ask for it. “I have discussed the matter with the police IGP and other related personnel. We will catch the killers,” the minister said.He said that multiple teams of law enforcing agencies were already working to find the killers and they would be brought to justice soon. IGP AKM Shahidul Hoque recently asked bloggers to provide law enforcers with the list of militants if it was available. “We have not found existence of any such list. It is not true that the police were not ensuring security of the bloggers.”Monirul Islam, Joint-Commissioner of police’s Detective Branch that deals with the militant cases said that they had no idea about any hit-list of bloggers.Imran H Sarker, spokesman of Ganajagoran Moncho, thinks that such killings are taking place repeatedly only because of the absence of trial and punishment of the killers. “The government will have to take responsibility for the killings as it did not take any steps to ensure security of the bloggers, even those who are receiving threats.”Demanding trial of the killers, Ashamani said, “Such incidents happened earlier. But the killers were not punished. Had the culprits been punished I would not have lost my husband.”
