Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) on Monday blogger Shafiur Rahman Farabi, the prime suspect in the popular blogger Avijit Roy murder case, and claimed he was involved in the killing of popular blogger Avijit Roy.
“After examining different issues, it appears to us that blogger Farabi was directly involved in the killing of Avijit Roy,” said Mufti Mahmood Khan, director at legal and media wing of Rab, at a press briefing at the Rab Headquarters after his arrest from the city’s Jatrabari area.
Being informed Farabi was leaving the city for Chittagong, a team of Rab-10 arrested him from Jatrabari bus stand area around 5:30 am, Mahmood Khan said.Farabi had been issuing death threats to slain blogger Avijit for his dissident comments against Islam for the last one and half years through his blog named ‘Farabi Blog’, he said.
Besides, Mahmood Khan said, a banned extremist group, ‘Ansarullah Bangla Seven’, also claimed responsibility for the murder of Avijit after two hours of the murder.
Avijit’s father, Prof Ajoy Roy, claimed that Farabi had been giving death threats to his son for the last one and a half year through facebook, he said.
Examining the facebook page of Farabi, the Rab found that Farabi through his facebook status to one Mannan Rahi, one and half years ago said, “Avijit is living in America. It’s not possible to kill him now, but when he will return to Bangladesh he will be killed.”
“In another facebook status Farabi told one of his friends that he will be arrested by tomorrow or the next day. From these statements it is clear that Farabi was directly involved in Avijit killing,” said the Rab director.
During primary interrogation, Farabi reportedly said he came to know about Avijit’s anti-Islamic writes-up 4-5 years back and he used to make comments protesting his writes-up.
He said that he had been at loggerheads with some atheist bloggers.
On February 24, 2013, Farabi was arrested in a case for issuing death threats to an Imam for administering the burial ceremony for blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider who was killed on February 15, 2013.
Later, Farabi secured his bail in the case from the High Court.
Avijit Roy, founder of Mukta-Mona blog, was killed and his wife Rafida Afrin Banya injured as unidentified criminals stabbed them near TSC the on Dhaka University (DU) Campus on Thursday night.
Prof Ajay Roy, father of the deceased and a former DU teacher, filed the case against some unnamed people with Shahbagh Police Station on Friday. He blamed extremists for the mmurder. – Agencies
