Dhaka: Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, publisher of US-Bangladeshi blogger Avijit Roy who was murdered on February 26 in Dhaka this year, was attacked on Sunday along with two others in his office in Lalmatia area in the capital of Bangladesh here. “He was dead”, Faisal’s father said.
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Both Dipan and Tutul had published books by Bangladeshi-American Avijit Roy, a popular atheist blogger and writer, who was accused by extremists of insulting Islam.
The head of secular bloggers’ group, Imran H. Sarker, told AFP that the people at the publishing house were attacked “in their heads and chests”, with two men also receiving bullet wounds.
Dhaka police said they were investigating the AQIS claim, but believed militants belonging to a banned local outfit were responsible for them all.
Ahmed, however, said the officer-in-charge of Sutrapur Police Station has called him after hearing the matter.
Dipan owned Jagriti Prokashoni Publishers based at Aziz Supermarket, a hub for alternative publishers in Dhaka.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s deputy commissioner Muntasirul Islam told reporters at the hospital: “The attack was pre-planned and the motive of the murder is yet to be understood, but it seems there was more than one murderer involved in this killing”.
The violence followed the killings of four atheist bloggers this year.
“We can not say for sure if this attack on the publishers is related to the previous attacks on bloggers without further investigation”, he said.
“The condition of at least one person is critical”, Mir said, adding that the attackers padlocked the office door from outside as they left. Earlier this year, Roy, a US resident, was fatally stabbed, and his wife was injured outside a book fair in Dhaka, the capital.
The tussle between secularism, freedom of speech and religious extremism in Bangladesh since 2013 has taken the lives of nine bloggers and publishers including Saturday’s attack.
“The situation in Bangladesh is becoming increasingly risky for those fearless enough to speak their own minds”, the group said.
Bangladesh police suspect that a militant group named Ansarullah Bangla may be behind the attacks and murders of the four bloggers.
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The attack on writers is not about silencing those who are writing offensive or anti-Islamic work, but about eliminating anyone who has the audacity to question or even ponder an alternative belief system.
