Another blogger hacked to death.

Another blogger was hacked to death in Sylhet city on Tuesday morning triggering protests.The killing Sylhet unit Ganajagaan Mancha organiser Ananta Bijoy Dash, 33, took to four the number of bloggers killed since 2013, in similar attacks.The latest killing triggered protests across the country including in Dhaka, Sylhet and campaigners denounced the government failure in protecting free thinkers.Local unit of Ganajagaran Mancha called a half-day strike in Sylhet city for today protesting at the murder of Ananta.Ananta, son of Rabindra Kumar Dash Nurani Residential Area at Subidbazar in the city, was an official of Sunamganj’s ZawabazarBranch of Pubali Bank and used to write on Muktamona Blog. He was also the author of several books.A witness, Sobhan Ali, said that a group of some four to five youth covering their faces with black clothe chased Ananta after he left his house at Subidbazar in the city at about 9:00am for his office.‘He started to run back towards his house to escape the attackers, but they hacked him in the head chasing him for 100 yards, leaving him critically injured,’ Sobhan, owner of a tea-stall at Subidbazar, told New Age.

Local people rushed Ananta to Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared him dead.Deputy director of the hospital Abdus Salam stated that Ananta had died before he was taken to the hospital.‘The information we gathered so far suggested that Ananta was killed for his writings,’ Sylhet Metropolitan Police additional deputy commissioner Rahmat Ullah told New Age.He suspected that the religious fanatics, who had killed several free-thinking bloggers in the country, might be involved in the killing.The body was handed over to his relatives at about 4:00pm after post-mortem examination.Ananta’s last posting on his facebook page was against a ruling Awami League lawmaker who wished to beat a university professor.In his last posting, Ananta wrote that once landlords were flogging their subjects for mistakes. Things have changed in course of time, but some ‘left over landlords’ still exist.Ananta criticised the lawmaker, who was not named, for rude attitude despite being member of an ‘unelected parliament.’The slain blogger termed the unnamed lawmaker as a ‘fundamentalist of Sylhet’ as the lawmaker threatened to flog the professor alleging that he was allegedly taking stance against Sylhet.
Leaders and activists of the local unit of Ganajagaran Mancha and different socio-cultural organisations brought Ananta’s body to the Central Shaheed Minar at Chowhatta at about 5:00pm to show last respect by his fans and common people in the city.

Sylhet Ganajagaran Mancha spokesman Debashish Debu at a briefing at the Sylhet Osmani Medical College called the strike for today.Earlier in the morning, the organisation activists brought out a procession from the medical college campus and held a rally.They said that Ananta could have not been killed, if the criminals involved in earlier murders of bloggers were brought to justice.‘The killers had threatened to kill Ananta in different times on the social web portals,’ Debashish alleged.Ananta’s sister-in-law Sama Bijoy Shee Sekhar told New Age that they would file a case with the police after completion of Anantaa’s funeral.Different political and social originations demanded immediate arrest of the perpetrators.Ganajagaran Mancha held a rally at front of National Museum in the capital. Its spokesperson Imran H Sarkar claimed that the government had failed to protect secular people.The Communist Party of Bangladesh, Democratic Left Alliance, Bangladesh Chhatra Union, Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee and many other political and socio-cultural organisations, in statements, demanded immediate arrest of the killers of all bloggers.On February 26, Bangladeshi born American blogger and writer Avijit Roy was hacked to death on Dhaka University premises after being threatened with death. He and his wife Rafida Ahmed Banna were hacked with machetes from the back near Teacher-Student Centre when they were returning from Ekushey book fair. Banna survived.Then police are yet to make any headway in this case but al-Qaeda unit of the Indian subcontinent in a video message claimed responsibility for the killing.

Barely a month after the killing, another blogger Oyasiqur Rahman was hacked to death on March 30. Two attackers caught red handed reportedly confessed to the murders of bloggers.Trials in the cases for the killing of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haidar Shovon and attack on his fellow Asif Mohiuddin in 2013 are yet to start.The trial in another case filed for the killing of Dhaka University professor Humayun Azad in 2004 is still pending as a metropolitan sessions court has been recording depositions of prosecution witnesses over two years since January 1, 2013. In February 2004, Humayun Azad, a poet, novelist and professor of literature at Dhaka University, was attacked by operatives of an outlawed Islamist group in a similar manner for writing a satirical novel, Pak Sar Zameen Sadbad, about religious fanatics.Blogger 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.Miscreants carried out a similar attack on Asif Mohiuddin, 29, a blogger and self-styled atheist, and stabbed him in the head near his office at Uttara on January 13, 2013.

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