Police suspect Ansarullah Bangla Team for Avijit Roy murder, say al-Qaeda ties possible

Detectives suspect Ansarullah Bangla Team might have played a major in the killing of secular writer-blogger Avijit Roy.

They think the radical outfit also has connections with international terror outfit al-Qaeda.
 
They spoke of their suspicions after an al-Qaeda offshoot in India claimed responsibility for the killing of Roy, over two months after the murder.
 
DMP’s Detective Branch spokesperson Monirul Islam on Sunday evening told bdnews24.com: “We have information that several militant outfits of Bangladesh follow al-Qaeda.”
 
Al-Qaeda top leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had announced two years ago that they would form branches in South Asian countries, including Bangladesh, but their activities were not evident.
 
After Roy was murdered on Feb 26 in a brutal attack, a Tweeter handle named ‘Ansar Bangla 7’ had claimed responsibility for the attack.
 
However, a report on SITE Intelligence Group’s website earlier on Sunday said Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) leader Asim Umar claimed credit for the murder of other “blasphemers” including Roy in Bangladesh and in Pakistan.
 
Monirul Islam said, “Detectives are looking into whether any Bangladeshi militant outfits and anyone of Ansarullah Bangla Team killed Avijit Roy after receiving training from al-Qaeda.”

Ansarullah Bangla Team hit the headlines only a few years ago after the known militant outfits, such as JMB and HuJI, less active.

The outfit’s chief Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmani is also one of those charged with the killing of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider in 2013.

But detectives are yet to establish a link between ‘Ansarullah Bangla Team’ and ‘Ansar Bangla 7’.

DB officials say Ansarullah Bangla Team closely follows al-Qaeda in its operations although they have no confirmation of the international militant group’s activities in Bangladesh.

A month after Roy’s killing, another blogger Oyasiqur Rahman Babu was killed in broad daylight in similar fashion in Dhaka.

Locals, including a transgender, had nabbed several suspected killers from the scene and handed them over to police.

The detainees had confessed having ties with Rahmani, police said. Police, however, are yet to arrest any of the killers of Avijit Roy.

The only one they have in custody so far is blogger Farabi Shafiur Rahman, known for his pro-extremism posts in social media, as a suspected instigator.

A DB official who is in the team investigating the murder, said: “We think members of an Ansarullah Bangla Team sleeper cell were behind this killing.”

A sleeper cell of this militant outfit generally had four-five members, said the official.

“These members don’t even know each other well.” “These cells have been set up to ensure that other members don’t get caught if police arrest one.”

However, the police official said, according to their investigations HuJI or JMB had no such code.