Bangladesh blogger's murder: Angry demonstrators protest against government's apathy

Dhaka: Angry protesters took to the streets in Bangladesh on Sunday, blaming the government for its “apathy” and the “culture of impunity”, a day after a secular publisher was killed while two bloggers and a publisher were injured in attacks claimed by al-Qaeda in the Indian sub-continent. Six writers and bloggers have been hacked to death in the past two and half years, five of them since January this year with families and friends of the deceased alleging failure on the part of police in bringing perpetrators to justice. Faisal Arefin Dipan, 43, a publisher who worked with slain atheist writer and blogger Avijit Roy, was hacked to death yesterday in his third-floor office in central Dhaka. The killing of Dipan came just hours after unidentified assailants attacked two secular writers and another publisher of US national Roy’s books Ahmedur Rshid Tutul, leaving one of them in a critically injured. A group identifying itself as Ansar al-Islam –Bangladesh chapter of al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) – claimed responsibility for the attacks. [caption id=“attachment_2490968” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Protesters raised slogans against the Bangladesh government’s apathy in Dhaka on Sunday. AFP[/caption] The attacks sparked widespread anger with different rights groups and social organisations staging street marches in the capital and elsewhere today, slamming police failures to ensure security and demanding immediate government action to bring the perpetrators of the crimes to justice. Teachers, writers, students and other protesters converged on Dhaka University to vent their anger. Ganojagoron Manch, a major forum of secular bloggers, also called for countrywide protests. “I don’t want any trial, I want good sense to prevail (among all),” said Dipan’s father Abul Kashem Fazlul Huq, a retired university professor and a well known left-leaning writer. “Both sides –- the one that’s doing politics using secularism and the other that’s doing politics using state religion (Islam) – are pushing the country towards destruction. Let good sense prevail on both sides,” he said. Online activists and bloggers blamed government’s “apathy” and “culture of impunity” for the murder of secular writers and publishers. Several rights activists alleged that the key people behind such murders and attacks could not be traced due to attempts to gain political mileage out of these incidents. Before Dipan’s murder, four secularist bloggers were killed by Islamist militants in Bangladesh this year. Bangladesh-born US writer Roy was hacked to death by unidentified assailants on February 26. Blogger Washiqur Rahman was murdered in central Dhaka on March 30. Writer and blogger Ananta Bijoy Das was killed in a similar attack in northeastern city of Sylhet on May 12. On August 7, attackers entered the apartment of blogger Niladri Niloy Chattapadhay and hacked him to death. Ansar Al Islam had claimed responsibility for the killings on social media. Meanwhile, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal today termed yesterday’s attacks on publishers and bloggers as “isolated incidents”. “Yesterday’s attacks are isolated incidents and such attacks also occur in other countries of the world,” he told reporters. Kamal, however, said, “the law enforcement agencies are thoroughly investigating” the incidents and “whoever were involved in the attacks, we will track them down.” “They are carrying such attacks to destabilise the country…Ansarullah, JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh) or IS, whoever has done this are working in favour of war criminals (who are being tried or await execution) or the Jamaat-e-Islami,” Kamal said. Another leading publisher Farid Ahmed today alleged unidentified assailants sent him an SMS issuing a death threat for publishing books authored by “atheists”. “You have published several books written by atheists. You have committed enough sins. Get ready for your death,” the SMS sent by a group named Al-Ahrar said. Chairman of the quasi-judicial National Human Rights Commission Mizanur Rahman criticised law enforcement agencies’ failure to track down the assailants of the previous murders of the bloggers, saying “if they were exposed to justice, the killers might not have got the scope to carry out the attacks yesterday.” Bangladesh Book Publishers and Sellers Association in a statement said they have decided to close all bookshops until 2PM tomorrow to protest the attacks on publishers. “We, al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub-Continent, claim responsibility for this operation,” a tweet from the account of Ansar al Islam said after the yesterday attacks. It described the publishers as “apostates” who frequently published books that were blasphemous. Both Dipan and Tutul, who is now being treated at a state-run facility with two other wounded bloggers, were publishers of slain blogger Roy. Ganohagoron Mancha organiser Ahmed Rajib Haider was the first secular blogger who was killed in front of his house in Pallabi on February 15 in 2013. Police has arrested several suspected Islamists and some of them have been put on trial. “The culture of impunity is of course one of the main reasons. Besides, the law enforcing agencies are projecting the slain bloggers as instigators of the murders in a bid to hide their failure,” blogger Subroto Shuvo said. Rights group ‘Ain O Salish Kendra’ Director Noor Khan Liton said “none of these murders are isolated incidents. It is the effect of rise of religious terrorism across the world.” “But (in Bangladesh) there have been some weaknesses of law enforcement agencies in these cases…there is also no preparedness to prevent such attacks,” he said. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ordered law enforcement agencies to track down the killers. PTI