Suspected extremists blamed for stabbing blogger to death

Suspected extremists stabbed a progressive blogger to death in broad day light in Tejgaon Industrial area in the city yesterday morning.
The deceased was identified as Wasiqur Rhaman alias Babu, 27, son of Tipu Sultan of Hazipur village in Ramganj Upazla in Laxmipur district. He was working in travel agency Far East Aviation located at Motijheel.
Babu was staying at second floor of Bismillah Manji at 4/2 at Begunbari area with his father, said Masudur Rahman, brother-in-law of the victim.According to Biplob Kumar Sarkar, deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (Tejgaon Division), three killers carried out the attack and patrol police in association with local people caught two of them along with sharp weapons.
The arrested persons were identified as Zikullah and Ariful Islam, students of Hathazari Madrasa in Chittagong and Darus Ulum Madrasa in Mirpur area in the city respectively.
The blogger was killed following a conflict over ideological difference , he added.
He however said, another attacker named Abu Taher managed to escape the scene.
The attack took place at a lane at Dipikar More in Begunbari area around 10:00am when Babu was on his way to office, said eyewitness Md Habibur Rahman, a resident of house No 4/3 Dakkhin Begunbari, a house beside the spot.
Rashida Kalam, a housewife also witnessed the brutal killing and told journalists that for at least thirty minutes, the body of Babu was lying in a pool of blood as local people and police were busy with the arrested miscreants.
Later police took severely injured Wasiqur to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), but the on-duty doctors declared him dead.
During the preliminary interrogation, both Zikrullah and Arif reportedly admitted that they killed Babu due to their ideological differences police official said.
‘‘We don’t understand what is blog, we did not read his write up. We killed him being advised by our elder brother Masum. It was our Imani responsibility to kill him and this is why we killed him,” police officials said quoting the two arrested Madrassa students.
On Sunday afternoon, Zikrullah, Arif and Taher surveyed the house of the deceased and planned to kill him when he came out from his rented house.
As part of their plan, the killers took the position and when he came out from his residence, Zikrullah and Taher attacked on him from backside with sharp weapons.
On Sunday afternoon, our elder brother Masum held a meeting with us at Hathirjeel area and showing the picture of Babu, he ordered us to kill him, the arrested students said.
‘Masum informed us that as Babu was writing against Islam and that is why he must be killed’, Zikrullah and Arif claimed.
As per instruction of Masum, we killed him, they added.
Taher managed to escape and police recovered a Chapati from Arif’s bag.
Zikrullah came to the city on March 28 from Hathajari Madrassa in Chittagong and stayed at a mosque at city’s Jatrabari area, police said.
However, DC Biplov denied which militant group killed Babu. According to the facebook profile of the deceased, he had a personal dispute following his controversial post against Rajib Nandy, a lecture of Communication and Journalism in Chittagong University.
In his post, he made an allegation against Rajib for her alleged sexual harassment against a college girl.
However, talking to journalists over phone, Rajib denied his involvement in the killing.
No case was filed as police is waiting for the relatives of the victim till filing the report.
The body was kept at DMCH morgue for autopsy.
The arrested youths were grilled by the Detective Branch officials at DB office at Mintu road in the city to unearth different sensational murder including blogger Avijit murder, TV presenter Faruqui murder.
Police claimed that the arrested students were guided by some others group near the spot as they did not find any cell phones with the arrestees. – Staff Reporter