Police say two writers and a publisher have been stabbed in an attack at a publishing house in Bangladesh’s capital.
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Police have said the banned local militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) were behind the previous attacks, which were also claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent.
About the same time, three men entered the offices of Jagriti Publications, where they found Dipan, 43, alone and stabbed him, leaving him with fatal neck wounds, said a spokesman at the Shahbag police station. Two writers were also wounded in that attack.
According to them, Dipan and Tutul were targeted as they published and promoted books written by free thinkers, especially those by Avijit Roy, a secularist-humanist writer who was hacked to death in February this year by Islamist militants.
Mr Roy was printed by both publishers. Roy’s killing, in February, was followed by three more almost identical assassinations of bloggers and intellectuals who have criticized fundamentalist Islam.
Another blogger, Washiqur Rahman, too, was hacked to death in Dhaka in March.
Police confirmed that Dipan was seriously injured in the attack and was brought to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Police officer Jamal Uddin said that the attackers left the crime scene keeping the door locked form outside.
The assailants hacked Tutul and the other two before locking them up and a few others in the office, witnesses said. All three of the victims were hospitalized, and Tutul was in critical condition, Meer said. Rafida Ahmed Bonya, Roy’s wife, survived the attack while losing a finger. Lists of activists and writers associated with the protests soon began to appear online, featuring the names of Roy and the other bloggers murdered this year. A series of blasts targeting Shia Muslims in Dhaka killed at least one person and wounded dozens more as they gathered for a procession to mark the holy day of Ashura.
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De Dora also took aim at Bangladesh’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, for “placing blame on the victims for offending religious feelings”.
