Staff Reporter :
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in separate drives arrested three suspected Islamist militants, including a British citizen, from the city’s Dhanmondi and Nilkhet areas on Monday night on charge of murder of bloggers Avijit Roy and Ananta Bijoy Das Babu.
The arrested men were identified as Touhidur Rahman, 58, mastermind of the murder and financers of militant group, Sadek Ali and Aminul Mollick, active member of Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT). Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) and its members are mostly students from private universities. “Sadek Ali and Aminul Mollick admitted in primary investigations that he took part in both the murders,” the RAB official said.
“The members of ABT planned in Kashimpur Jail in Gazipur to kill bloggers. Its Organizing Secretary Jasim Uddin Rahmani knew all things and his younger brother Abul Bashar supplied the instruction to the other members,” he claimed.
The RAB official said, “They confessed that five members of the radical group took part in Avijit killing. They are : Ramzan Siam, Nayeem, Julhas Biswas, Jafran Al Hasan and Sadek. Of them Sadek was held by RAB.” He also claimed that the three detained gave the information during interrogation in the morning.
On February 26, Avijit Roy was hacked to death and his wife injured in a criminal attack near the TSC at Dhaka University.
On the other hand, Ananta was hacked to death in Sylhet city’s Subidbazar area on May 12. Niloy Chakrabarti was hacked to death at his home on August 7.
The other victim Washiqur Rahman who was killed in Dhaka four months ago.
Most secular bloggers have gone into hiding, often using pseudonyms in their posts. And at least seven have fled abroad, sources said,
The government has vowed to hunt down the killers after facing accusations that too little was being done to stop such attacks. The ABT was banned in May over a series of killings of bloggers.
