Farabi arrested over Avijit murder.
Rapid Action Battalion on Monday morning arrested Chittagong University student Shafiur Rahman Farabi on suspicion of his involvement in the killing of writer and blogger Avijit Roy. A team of RAB-10 arrested him at Jatrabari in the capital around 5:30am as he was preparing to leave Dhaka for Chittagong, the battalion officials said. The RAB said they were analysing the CCTV camera footages of the events on the Bangla Academy book fair premises on the night of February 26, and had found suspicious movements of five people. One of them was found pointing at Avijit who was nearby on the book fair premises around 8:00pm. They shadowed the blogger for a few moments before disappearing, said the RAB official. RAB said that Farabi was arrested because he had posted comments on facebook giving death threat to Avijit. Farabi was earlier arrested by the Detective Branch of police on February 24, 2013 after blogger Rajib Haider was killed.
Farabi, a student of physics at Chittagong University, was arrested at that time under the ICT Act for issuing death threat to the imam who had led the namaz-e-janaza for Rajib. He was released on bail in August that year. Briefing the media, the battalion legal and media wing director Mufti Mahmud Khan said that during primary interrogation, Farabi admitted that he had threatened to kill Avijit. Farabi came to know about Avijit through his posts on blog about five years ago and the two had developed a bitter relationship over their conflicting views on religions. RAB additional director general (operation) Ziaul Ahsan said that Farabi denied he had any links with the murder of Avijit, but delighted in the killing and said that Avijit had been given the punishment he deserved for demeaning religion. RAB officials said that Farabi was among the people who had posted on the Twitter account Ansar Bangla-7 hailing the murder of Avijit.
Farabi was handed over to the Detective Branch which was investigating the killing. Avijit Roy, a free-thinking writer and blogger, was hacked to death and his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya grievously injured by unidentified assailants near TSC on the Dhaka University campus on the night of February 26. Avijit, a Bangladesh-born US citizen, came to Bangladesh in mid-February to launch his two books which were published on the occasion of the Amar Ekushey Book Fair. Earlier, Farabi was arrested in connection with murder of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haidar Shovon, said Mufti Mahmud Khan. Ahmed Rajib, an architect by profession and an activist of the Shahbagh Ganajagaran Mancha movement, was hacked to death in the capital’s Pallabi on February 15, 2013. A general strike was observed at Dhaka University on Monday at the call of Pragatishil Chhatra Jote, a combine of left-leaning student organisations, in protest at Avijit’s killing. Most of the classes did not take place at the DU. Scheduled examinations, however, were taken.
Pragatishil Chhatra Jote brought out a protest procession from Madhu’s Canteen in the morning and staged a rally in front of the Arts Faculty building. The speakers blamed police inaction for the murder. They said that Avijit was murdered due to utter inefficiency and negligence of duty by the police. The alliance will submit a memorandum to the home ministry on March 4 and hold a solidarity rally of students and teachers on March 3 at Shahbagh. Teachers and students of Jahangirnagar University under the banner of ‘JU Family’ condemned the killing of Avijit Roy, founder of Mukto-mona blog, and demanded a judicial enquiry and capital punishment for the killers.
- See more at: http://newagebd.net/99584/farabi-arrested-over-avijit-murder/#sthash.6aLQE2pv.dpuf
