Threat takes book out of list

An online outlet has ‘taken a book off its list’ after a fundamentalist blogger threatened to attack its office on Saturday.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 16 March 2014, 03:02 PM
Updated : 17 March 2014, 12:18 PM

The office of rokomari.com will be attacked if ‘Bishwaser Virus’ authored by Avijit Roy is not taken off its selling list, says Blogger Farabi Shafiur Rahman.

‘Allah’ and His ‘Rasul’ (Prophet Muhammad) had been sarcastically treated in the book, says Farabi, who had been detained for threatening the Imam of Shahbagh movement activist Ahmed Rajib Haider’s funeral prayers.

The rokomari.com does not keep any book of Syed Abul Moksud and Faruk Wasif on the home page, but it does keep Roy’s books including ‘Bishwaser Virus’ (Virus of Belief), Farabi adds.

File Photo

“There is nothing new in the books by Avijit Roy. His books are just copy and paste from the websites run by Christian missionaries. By copying and pasting from the websites of Answering Islam, he is passing them off as his own.”

Answering back, rokomari.com’s Chief Executive Officer Mahmudul Hasan Sohagh says Farabi had better rate the book and give his opinion in a review.

As Farabi could not be appeased with this, Avijit’s books were kept on the website as ‘out of print’.

Protesting rokomari.com’s move, Avijit Roy says in a facebook post, “rokomari.com should be unwavering in keeping writers’ liberty. My books have not been banned by the State or the Court.”

“Rather, Farabi faces a lawsuit, in which charges have been pressed against him (over issuing a threat to the Imam, who administered Rajib’s namaz-e-janaza),” he said. Farabi is out on bail since Aug 21 last year.

“We do not ask for taking any religion-based book from the book list. Many books on religions, jihad, written by razakars, are available at the rokomari.com.”

Abhijit Roy is one of the founders of a community blogging site, mukto-mona.com.