Dhaka (AsiaNews) – Radical Islamists attacked and hacked to death Oyasiqur Rahman Babu, a blogger who managed a website monitoring minority rights violations in Bangladesh. The murder took place yesterday in Dhaka’s Tejgaon area.
A crowd stopped two attackers: Zikrullah, a student at the Hefazat-e-Islam’s Hathazari madrassa, and Ariful, a student at the Mirpul Darul Uloom madrassa. A third attacker, Abu Taher, was able to get away. Local police sources confirmed the arrests, saying they also recovered the murder weapons.
“Oyasiqur was killed to punish him for writing on religious matters,” said Tejgaon Deputy Commissioner Biplab Kumar Sarker. “We are still investigating whether the killers are involved with extremist organisations."
The murder follows that, a month ago, of Avijit Roy, another blogger who was hacked to death because of his criticism of Bangladesh’s slide towards Islamism.
Both Roy and Oyasiqur had criticised Jamaat-e-Islami and other radical Bangladeshi Islamist groups.
"I asked him many times not to write about these issues,” said Tamanna Setu, a friend of the victim, “but he said he could do it because no one knew his identity.”
“We are really sorry for what happened."