Blogger Avijit hacked to death.
Avijit Roy, a free-thinking blogger, was hacked to death by unidentified miscreants on the Dhaka University campus on Thursday night. His wife Rafida Ahmed was grievously injured in the attack that bore the hallmark of the attack on writer Humayun Azad at the same place on a February night 11 years ago. The assailants stabbed the couple repeatedly before a dumbstruck crowd near the Teacher-Student Centre on the Dhaka University campus at around 8:30pm as they were on their way home after visiting the Amar Ekushey Book Fair on the Bangla Academy premises, the police said. The couple were immediately taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. ‘He suffered fatal wounds in the head and died from bleeding around 10:00pm after being brought to the hospital,’ said the on-duty doctor Sohel Ahmed. There were as many as nine marks of stab on his head, he added. Threats were issued several times earlier to Avijit, 43, founder of the Mukto Mona blog, that he would meet the fate of Humayun Azad, a DU teacher who was stabbed by Islamist militants on the night of February 27, 2004 in a similar attack.
Humayun recovered but later died of a heart attack in Germany. DU proctor Amzad Ali, after talking to the victim’s family, said Avijit had received death threats because of his activities on the blog. Avijits’s father Ajay Roy is a retired professor of physics at Dhaka University, he said. Rafida’s left hand fingers were severed in the knife attack. DMCH police outpost inspector Mozammel Haque told New Age that unidentified people on a CNG-run auto- rickshaw had come to the TSC area and attacked the couple. But Shahbagh police officer-in-charge Sirajul Islam said two people attacked the couple as they came out of Suhrawardy Udyan near TSC around 8:30pm and struck them with machetes repeatedly. Dhaka Metropolitan Police additional commissioner (detective branch) Sheikh Mohammad Maruf Hasan said police had started investigation but were yet to have any clue to the motive for the killing.
Police seized two machetes and a bag from the spot. In February 2013, blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider, also an activist of the Ganajagaran Mancha, was stabbed to death. Avijit authored more than nine books. Two of his books — Biswaser Virus’ (Virus of Faith) and ‘Abishwaser Darshan (Philosophy of Disbelief) — were launched in the ongoing book fair. Avijit, who lived in the United States, came to Bangladesh on February 16 to attend the book fair and was scheduled to leave the country on February 29. After graduating from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Avijit went to the United States and was teaching at a university there. As the news of his death spread, protests broke out on the Dhaka University campus with numerous small processions demanding immediate arrest of the killers. Students and teachers of Dhaka University also called a protest rally at TSC square at 11:00am today in protest at the brutal killing of the free-thinking activist.
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