They don’t die

Bloggers in Bangladesh are furious in protest over the murder of Rajib Haider, a fellow blogger and an active participant of the Shahbagh protests.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 16 Feb 2013, 01:16 AM
Updated : 16 Feb 2013, 01:16 AM

The cyber space is up in arms over the murder and there is a rush of postings on sites such as Amarblog, Sachalayatan, Somewhere In Blog and other blog sites.

They all have one thing to ask for – a complete ban on Jamaat-e-Islami.

Rajib, an architect by profession, was a regular blogger using his pen-name ‘Thaba Baba’. He was strident in criticism of the Jamaat and its student affiliate, Islami Chatra Shibir and vociferous in asking for justice against the war criminals.

Family, friends and relatives blame the fundamentalist Jamaat for Rajib’s murder. They refer to a ‘death threat’ from a post in Sonar Bangla blog.

‘Amarblog’ put up black badges on their homepage bearing a message to ‘grief into strength’.

A Kranti Sourav profile bearing picture of a child had put up a post over his desire to shoot Jamaat-Shibir activists . “But I can’t… I am not armed, not every wishes can be fulfilled, ” he said Saturday morning at 8:14am.

Another profile under name Rajib had put up a post ‘Are we about to see another Dec 14?’ at 9:27am. That was when the retreating Pakistani troops and their local collaborators had massacred large number of secular Bengali intellectuals on the eve of the fall of Dhaka to the Mukti Fauj and the Indian army.

Another profile ‘Sushanto’ urged all to ‘come out for war’.

Profile ‘Talim Imanur Rahman’ promised ‘blood for blood’.

Rajib’s last post was in Somewhere In Blog , 8 hours before his body was found at around 9:00pm.

He had asked for targeting activities of institutions backed by the Jamaat and laid out a plan of action for it.

Blog site Sonar Bangla had shared a post where Rajib was put on a hit list and threatened.

A facebook page was opened soon after Rajib’s murder. A status there reads : ‘Keep on preparing hitlists, but Thaba Babas don’t die in this country! Where life ends, Thaba Babas begin !’