AGENCIES
An anti-terrorism tribunal of Bangladesh on Wednesday sentenced four persons to death for killing the science blogger Ananta Bijoy Das on May 12, 2015. Out of the four only one Abul Khaer Rashid Ahmed has been in jail since filing of the case in 2015, while the other three are absconding. They were tried in absentia.
The court observed that the convicts tried to tarnish the country’s reputation through the murder of the secular blogger. Ananta Bijoy was known for his secular-atheist views. He wrote blogs for Mukto-Mana which was once moderated by another blogger Avijit Roy who was himself killed earlier in February the same year.
Ananta Bijoy Das was hacked to death in front of his house by a group of assailants in 2015. Later, the banned outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) claimed responsibility for the murder.
A total of four bloggers were killed in 2015 in Bangladesh. Blogger Avijiy Roy was hacked to death on February 26 and Wasiqur Rahman was killed on March 30 the same year. Subsequently another atheist blogger Niloy Neel was hacked to death in his own house in Dhaka in August 2015 for writing against fundamentalism and extremism and in favour of minority rights.
In February last year, a special tribunal in Dhaka sentenced five persons accused of the attack on Avijit Roy to death and another to life imprisonment. The verdict in the murder cases of Washiqur and Niloy are yet to come.
A series of attacks and murder of bloggers who wrote against religious extremism took place in Bangladesh between 2013-16. It evoked strong condemnation across the world including the UN and the US.