Police yet to identify Avijit’s killers UN condemns murder, US offers FBI assistance in investigation, Ajay Roy receives threat over phone .

The police have yet to find any clues to establish the identities of the killers of writer and blogger Avijit Roy and the investigation into the grisly murder has hardly made any progress although the nature of the crime and its target suggests militant links. The United Nations has joined the world community in condemning the killing while United States and its Federal Bureau of Investigation has offered assistance in the investigation of the murder of the Bangladesh-born US citizen. Krishnapada Roy, deputy commissioner of Detective Branch (south) of police said, ‘We have not made any significant progress so far and time has not come to say anything concrete.’ Condemnations continued to pour in since Avijit was hacked to death by unknown miscreants on the Dhaka university campus on the night of February 26. People from various strata have vented their anger at the police failure to track down the perpetrators even two days after the murder.

Avijit’s body would be kept at Aparajeya Bangla on the Dhaka University campus for two hours from 11:00am today (Sunday) for mourners to have a glimpse and pay their last respect to the slain writer. The body will be handed over to the Dhaka Medical College for research work. The family members and protesters have accused the police of watching the attack on Avijit Roy and his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya as passive onlookers. They wondered how the assailants could attack the couple and leave the spot safely when police were on duty a few yards from the spot. Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Saturday condemned the killing of Avijit Roy and demanded a fair investigation and trial of the murder. In a statement, BNP joint secretary general Salah Uddin Ahmed said the killing of Avijit in an apparently foolproof police enclosure in the Bangla Academy and TSC area in the month of February proved that the government had failed to protect lives of citizens. Ajay Roy, father of the slain blogger, told reporters at his apartment that the police were not sincere about the investigation. ‘They have the lists of the criminals. They can arrest the people [involved in the killing] any time, which they are not doing,’ said Ajay, also a retired professor of physics at Dhaka University.

Unidentified armed people stabbed Avijit, also the founder of the blog, Mukto-Mona, and his wife Rafida on Thursday night at the Teachers Students Centre on the Dhaka University campus after the couple came out of the Amar Ekushey book fair. Avijit died after being taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. A twitter account in the name of Ansar Bangla-7 gleefully delighted in the grisly murder and termed it an ‘achievement’. A series of tweets since the murder described it as a punishment for Avijit’s ‘crime against Islam’. But the account was found deactivated on Tuesday. DMP joint commissioner (DB) Monirul Islam said that the police were not yet certain who had operated the account and where from, but suspected that it might be the same Ansarullah Bangla Team, an extremist outfit investigators had traced after the killing of Rajiv Haider, another blogger and activist of Ganajagaran Mancha, in February 2013.

A high official of Rapid Action Battalion, however, said that it might be a fake account to hide the perpetrators. A US team on Saturday visited the house Ajay Roy, father of Avijit, and offered their condolences. The United States, meanwhile, has offered assistance to the investigation in the Avijit murder case if the Bangladesh government asked for it, a spokesperson for the state department said in Washington on Thursday. ‘Clearly, we know his [Avijit Roy] background, which was why I outlined it, but don’t have anything to ascribe in terms of a motive in this case,’ the spokesperson, Jen Psaki told a regular press briefing. Asked if the US administration had any information about the motive for the murder, Psaki said, ‘We do not have more information at this point. We, of course, will provide consular assistance as is appropriate. We’re also ready to assist in the investigation if asked.’ Meanwhile, a Detective Branch investigator told New Age on Saturday that officials of Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States stationed in Dhaka had already communicated with Dhaka Metropolitan Police on Friday following media reports on the murder.  ‘The official wanted to know how FBI can assist us to complete the investigation…,’ the DB official added.

Avijit’s father Ajay Roy on Saturday said that US embassy officials had talked with him over phone and expressed their interest in involving FBI in the investigation. At a press briefing at the United Nations headquarters on Friday, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the secretary general, hoped the perpetrators would be quickly brought to justice. ‘On the attack of the blogger, we spoke to our human rights colleagues who obviously condemned the attack and expressed the hope that the perpetrators will be quickly brought to justice through the due process of law,’ said Dujarric. Ajay Roy, coordinator of Sampradayikata-Jangibad Birodhi Mancha, said that he had been under threat for several years. ‘Even some unidentified people called and threatened me over mobile phone on Thursday night immediately after the attack on my son,’ he said. The callers told the professor that Avijit was killed because of his ‘anti-Islamic campaigns’. They also asked Ajay Roy to come to ‘their path’ or meet the fate of his son. Pragatishil Chhatra Jote, a combine of left-leaning student organisations, called a general strike at Dhaka University for Monday in protest at Avijit’s killing.

They will submit a memorandum to the home ministry on March 4 and a solidarity rally of students and teachers on March 3 at Shahbagh. Avijit and his wife came under attack before a dumbstruck crowd of several hundred people at the TSC where there were police barricades and checkpoints for the Amar Ekushey book fair at Bangla Academy. None, however, could identify and stop the assailants. DMP Ramna zone assistant commissioner Shibly Noman said that there were over 60 closed circuit TV cameras installed on the Bangla Academy fook fair premises, but no CC TV camera covered the spot where the murder was committed. He said that the police were analyzing the footages of CC TV cameras installed on the university campus in a bid to find any clues. Pragatishil Chhatra Jote brought out a mourning procession on the Dhaka University campus on Saturday wearing black badges. The platform’s coordinator Hasan Tarek accused the police of inaction when the assailants had attacked Avijit. Sammilita Sankskritik Jote at a protest rally at TSC announced day-long hunger strike at Central Shaheed Minar for March 6, demanding arrest of the killers. Former convener of the Jote, Nasiruddin Yousuf Bacchu said that the anti-liberation forces with the help of militants were killing progressive and secular-minded people to turn the country into a terror-state. ‘We are not safe until the government tracks down the killers of Avijit,’ he said.

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