Another item to add to IndiaFacts’ repository of horrific tales of persecution of Hindus in the subcontinent. The latest one should count as one of the most brutal yet.
Eminent Blogger and writer Avijit Roy has been killed and his wife (also a blogger)Rafida Ahmed Bonna, severely injured when unidentified Islamic miscreants hacked them at TSC of Dhaka University on Thursday night.Roy was a prominent advocate of the free thought movement in Bangladesh. He was an engineer by profession, but popular for his writings in his self-founded site, Mukto-Mona—an Internet congregation of freethinkers, rationalists, skeptics, atheists, and humanists mostly of Bengali and South Asian descent.
Avijit is the son of former DU teacher Dr Ajay Roy.Following the attack, he and his wife were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital in critical condition. He died while undergoing treatment around 10:30pm, said Shahbagh police station OC Sirajul Islam. Bonna told the Dhaka Tribune: “The miscreants attacked us with cleavers around 8:45pm.”
The ruling party Awami League is perceived as having failed to protect the minorities and free thinkers in Bangladesh even as radical Islam is growing there with all its “barbaric crudeness and fanaticism.” Sources also say that Jamaat and BNP may be behind this horrific killing.
Witnesses said some unidentified miscreants swooped on the bloggers and hacked them mercilessly between 8:30pm and 9pm while they were returning from the book fair. OC Sirajul said: “We do not have any clear idea about the attackers. But, the police is suspecting that those who attacked Humayun Azad might be behind this as the attacking style suggested similarity.”
On February 27, 2004, Professor Humayun Azad was attacked on the way back from book fair. The savagery of the attack caused him severe health problems. He died the following August in Germany.
Avijit’s attackers also exploded two crude bombs outside the Dhaka Medical College Hospital(DCMH) around 11:30pm, even as the news spread in the city.
A group of people have staged a protest in front of the DMCH, protesting the killing.
The DU Proctor Amjad Ali said: “I came to know the writer had been receiving threats from Islamic militants because of his anti-communal activism.”
Among the teachers of Dhaka University who rushed to Dhaka Medical College hospital hearing the news of the attack, were Professor Dr AbulBarkat and Professor Anwar Hossain.Professor Anwar Hossain said those who are against the country’s liberation, democracy, free thoughts and attacked Humayun Azad, have perpetrated this.
Liton Nandi, Dhaka University Chhatra Union president, told the Dhaka Tribunethat they were all set to bring a torch procession, protesting the attack and killing.
Noted novelist, writer and activist, Taslima Nasreen tweeted thus:
There seems to be a pattern emerging in Bangladesh. Earlier in 2014, online bookstore Rokomari.com stopped selling books by Roy after an Islamic militant issued death threats on Facebook to the website’s owner.The death threats were posted on Facebook by FarabiShafiur Rahman, an Islamist extremist allegedly linked to the dreaded Jamaat-e-Islami.Farabi accused Avijit of defaming Islam and the “prophet” Mohammed and accused Rokomari.com chairman Mahmudul Hasan Sohag of “promoting atheism” by selling his books.
In his Facebook post, Farabimentioned the office address of Rokomari.com and called upon his “Islamist friends” in the adjacent locality to attack.He also told Sohag that he would suffer the same fate as Ahmed RajibHaider, a popular blogger known by the psuedonym Thaba Baba, who was hacked to death last year by machete-wielding Islamic militants.
Here are the screenshots of the death threats, in Bangla.
Among Avijit Roy’s acclaimed books are Biswas and Bigyan (Belief and Science), AbishwasherDarshan (philosophy of atheism), Samakamita: BaigyanikebongSamajmanastattikAnusandhan (Homosexuality: Scientific and socio-psychological interventions)and SatantraBhabna o BuddirMukti (individual thoughts and freedom of thoughts).
Avijit and his wife who reside in the United States,visited Bangladesh to attend the book fair as two of his books were featured in the fair. He was on the radar of Islamic fundamentalists for continuing his literary battle against Islamic radicalism in Bangladesh. Matters worsenedwhen Muslim fanatics learnt that he had married a Muslim girl. His wife Rafida Ahmed Bonna was targeted because she supported her husband in his atheism.
Born in a reputed Hindu family, Avijit eventually became an atheist.
The ruling party Awami League is perceived as having failed to protect the minorities and free thinkers in Bangladesh even as radical Islam is growing there with all its “barbaric crudeness and fanaticism.” Sources also say that Jamaat and BNP may be behind this horrific killing.
IndiaFacts Staff articles, reports and guest pieces