A blogger known for his atheist views has been stabbed to death in Bangladesh, in the latest of a series of attacks on independent writers in the emerging south Asian nation.Washiqur Rahman, 27, died of serious injuries inflicted in the assault on Monday morning in Dhaka, the capital.
Police have arrested two men, reported to be religious students, for the murder, which comes just weeks after an American atheist blogger was also killed in Dhaka, in a crime that triggered international outrage.
Local police chief Wahidul Islam told Agence France-Presse the victim had been “brutally hacked to death this morning with big knives just 500 yards [460 metres] from his home at Dhaka’s Begunbari area.”
Islam said the two detained men were arrested immediately after the attack as they tried to flee the scene.
Police said they were unsure whether the victim wasan atheist blogger but another social media activist said that he used to write “against religious fundamentalism”.
“It appeared Rahman used to write using a pen name, Kutshit Hasher Chhana [Ugly Duckling],” Imran Sarker, head of the Blogger and Online Activists Network in Bangladesh, said. “He was a progressive free thinker and was against religious fundamentalism.”
The Dhaka Tribune said the dead man was a member of eight Facebook group pages including Atheist Bangladesh. Local media have said the suspected attackers were students at religious schools known as medressas.
Rahman is the third such blogger to have been murdered in the Muslim-majority country in the past two years.
Police have also arrested a suspect over the killing in February of American atheist writer and blogger Avijit Roy.
Roy, an engineer of Bangladeshi origin, was killed by machete-wielding assailants near Dhaka University as he and his wife were returning from a book fair last month. His wife, Rafida Bonya Ahmed, suffered head injuries and lost a finger. She later returned to the US for treatment.
“While Avijit and I were being ruthlessly attacked, the local police stood close by and did not act,” Rafida told Reuters.
Roy’s death sparked uproar at home and abroad, with hundreds of secular activists protesting for days to demand justice. They also criticised the country’s government for not doing enough to protect humanist writers.
An adviser to Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, appeared in comments earlier this month to pass the blame for the murder of Roy on to the police.
“Identify the black sheep among the force and bring them under law and justice to uphold your image,” HT Imam told senior officers.
Credit: The Guardian
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