Two suspected members of an outlawed group known as the Ansarullah Bangla Team were arrested in Dhaka for alleged links to the killing of 40-year-old blogger Niloy Chatterjee, Senior Police Official Mahbub Alam said.
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Dhaka Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Muntasirl Islam said Jatiya Party leader Chunnu’s nephew Sad Al Nahin was detained from Uttara and Masud Rana from Kalshi area on Thursday, bdnews24 reported.
In Bangladesh, in the past two and a half years, five atheist bloggers and five secular activists who supported them have been killed in near-identical machete attacks after being identified and tracked by the killers.
Mr Neel’s attackers had tricked their way into his home by saying they were looking to rent a flat.
Although the bloggers became popular among secular Bangladeshis, their writing angered the large community of Islamists. He was said to have received death threats from Islamist extremists.
In February, Bangladeshi-American Avijit Roy was hacked to death on the Dhaka University campus while walking with his wife.
The organisation’s chief Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmani was arrested in August 2013 in the blogger Rajib Haider murder case. ABT claimed responsibility of killing three of the four bloggers who were killed in Bangladesh this year.
The government has come under increasing pressure to investigate the killings and stop further murders, with many accusing it of failure to provide security to the country. “It’s ridiculous that those who are going to the police are not being given protection at this point”, she said.
“He was critical against religions and wrote against Islamist, Hindu, Christian and Buddhist fundamentalism”, stated Asif Mohiuddin, a blogger who survived an attack in 2013. “Do not hurt anyone’s religious belief”, Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque said. He claimed his complaints were not taken seriously.
“Bloggers are being killed not for hurting religious sentiments, but for their stance against religious fundamentalism”.
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Independent writers have been targeted by groups seeking to convert the Muslim-majority country – governed by secular laws based on British common law – into a Sharia-based state. Nahin was freed on bail but was supposedly being watched by detectives.
