Article

2016-01-01 Bangladesh

[Dhaka Tribune] A radical Islamist preacher and his seven followers, all expelled students of a private university, have been convicted for the murder of secular writer and war crimes trial campaigner Ahmed Rajeeb Haider in the midst of the 2013 Shahbagh movement.

Motivated by a former leader of Islami Chhatra Shibir
... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh...
who was sentenced to death yesterday, the six other students of North South University planned the murder and killed Rajeeb with machetes in front of his house at Palashbari of Pallabi on February 15 reportedly for his writings critical of Islam.

Continued from Page 1

Jasim Uddin Rahmani, the chief of holy warrior group Ansarullah Bangla Team, was sentenced to five years in prison for instigating the murder. Existence of the organization came to light after the arrest of Rahmani in August 2013.

The court said that it had not found any direct involvement of Ansarullah as an organization in the murder.

The group, identifying itself as al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, later claimed to have killed five secular activists including science writer and former Buet lecturer Avijit Roy. The government banned Ansarullah on May 25 this year. It is also believed to be linked with other outlawed holy warrior groups.

Architect Rajeeb, known as Thaba Baba in the blogging community, used to write against religious zealots and religion-based politics. He was an active supporter of Gonojagoron Moncho, a youth platform that demonstrated throughout February in 2013 demanding death penalty for all war criminals.

The victim's father and Gonojagoron Moncho rejected the judgement terming Rahmani's sentence lenient. On the other hand, the court criticised the investigation officers in the case for negligence in performing their duties properly.

Dhaka's Speedy Trial Tribunal 3 Judge Sayeed Ahmed pronounced the verdict yesterday morning in presence of the seven accused tossed in the clink
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
in the case. The other accused -- Redwanul Azad Rana -- has remained traceless. He criminal masterminded the murder, the court said.

All but the runaway made confessional statements in the case. The court said that it had to rely on the confessional statements as there was no eyewitness. The court also came down heavily on the Sherlocks saying that the probe should have been more thorough.

Two of the accused -- Rana and Md Faisal Bin Nayeem alias Dweep -- were given death penalty. The court also fined them Tk10,000 each. The court said that they be hanged by the neck till death.

Rana is also a prime suspect in Avijit Roy murder. The DMP announced a Tk5 lakh bounty to help police track and arrest Rana. Earlier the DB police sent letters to the Immigration Police and the BGB to stop him from fleeing the country. He is now believed to be in Australia.

Md Maksudul Hasan alias Anik was given life-term jail with a fine of Tk10,000 and an additional year in prison in default. Md Ehsan Reza alias Rumman, Md Nayem Sikdar alias Irad and Nafis Imtiaz were given 10-year jail each with Tk5,000 as fines. In default, they would have to serve six more months in jail.

Sadman Yasir Mahmud was given three years in prison and fined Tk2,000 with three months more jail time in default.

Rahmani was given five years in jail and Tk2,000 in fine with two months of additional imprisonment in default.

In his statement, the radical preacher said that he used to deliver sermons to his followers against atheist bloggers. Many students of public and private universities gathered at his Markajul Ulum Al Islamia Madrasa at Mohammadpur. He used to tell the youths that the atheists should be killed to establish Shariah law in the country.

Rahmani was removed from the madrasa as the chairman of its management committee soon after his arrest on August 12, 2013 in Barguna with his 30 disciples. Detectives raided his residence and madrasa office in Dhaka the following day and found a hitlist that contained the name of Rajeeb.

About the lenient punishment of Rahmani, the court said: "Many of you can raise question why Rahmani has been awarded five years' imprisonment. It is because there was no proof of his direct involvement in the killing."

According to the autopsy report, Rajeeb was hacked with sharp weapons on his head, cheek and shoulder before his throat was finally slit. Two blood-stained machetes were found on the murder spot.

The court said that going through the case dockets, it found no reason to spare any of the accused. The sentences varied based on their role in the killing.

In the verdict, the court said that the investigation officers did not produce the pieces Rajeeb had written though he was mentioned as a blogger. Besides this, the Sherlocks could not find out the exact motive behind the murder.

Criticising the Sherlocks, the judge said that the Sherlocks told the court about some CD's of Rahmani's sermons but they had not submitted those before it. They presented some inciting books but those were written after the murder.

However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese...
the accused told the police and the court that they had killed Rajeeb for his blog posts and revealed their plan and execution process accordingly.

Despite the flaws, the IO produced 35 witnesses before the court. "The state has succeeded to prove the allegations," the court said.

"Rajeeb was an engineer. The accused claimed that they were studying engineering. That means an engineer was killed by some future engineers and he got no favour. The killers had no personal enmity with Rajeeb. It is pathetic," the judge said.

From the case docket it was found that the main planner of the killing was Rana. According to the plan, the killers were divided into two groups to execute the plan. Rumman, Irad and Nafis were in the "intelligence group" to keep an eye on Rajeeb's movement for several days.

Dweep hacked Rajeeb on the neck while absconding Rana was present on the spot. Anik bought the machetes and carried those to the spot before the attack on Rajeeb. He also hacked Rajeeb. Faisal bought new SIM cards for all of the members to keep contact among themselves. Another member of the team Sadman was aware of the plan.

Detectives submitted the charge sheet on January 29 last year, nearly 11 months after the murder. On May 12, the case was shifted to the tribunal from Dhaka's Fourth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge Court for quick disposal. After indictment of the accused, the trial began on May 27 and ended on December 28.

Outrage, conspiracies
The activists at Shahbagh were outraged when they learnt from the media about the killing. The killing took place at a time when the Dhaka-based movement had gained momentum and thousands of people from across the country and abroad were staging demonstrations in solidarity.

The killers had planned the murder in early February, said police. Rajeeb's name was first seen on a hitlist of Shahbagh activists prepared by a writer of Chhatra Shibir's Sonar Bangladesh Blog on February 11, 2013. The post was meant to provoke radical Islamists against the war crimes trial campaigners.

Soon after the murder, Facebook profiles and pages linked to Chhatra Shibir spread some fake blog posts of Rajeeb to justify the killing.

However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese...
Rajeeb's body was taken to Shahbagh the following day and thousands of people performed his janaza. Activists in Chittagong also held a janaza remembering Rajeeb.

Prime Minister ~~the loathesome~~ Sheikh Hasina

...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
and then home minister MK Alamgir met Rajeeb's parents and pledged exemplary action against the killers. Hasina also said that Jamaat-Shibir, which had also opposed Bangladesh's birth in 1971, should not be allowed to do politics in the country.

The parliament expressed grief over the murder on February 17.

On the other hand, two daily newspapers -- the daily Inqilab and the daily Amar Desh -- published those fake blog posts which eventually instigated the Islamist parties and groups to launch attacks on Gonojagoron Moncho activists and stages across the country.

Moreover, judicial inquiry was launched against a High Court judge, Justice Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, for his campaign against Rajeeb and the Shahbagh activists on the court premises.

Later, Shafiur Rahman Farabi, a leader of banned holy warrior group Hizb-ut Tahrir, was arrested for threatening with death the imam who had administered Rajeeb's funeral prayers. Farabi was also arrested in March last year for instigating the murder of Avijit Roy.

Posted by Fred 2016-01-01 00:00|| || Front Page|| [19 views ] Top
File under: Ansarullah Bangla Team

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