19 bloggers, ministers, teachers, Ganajagaran Mancha organisers threatened with death

A letter threatening to kill 19 persons including ministers, teachers, cultural activists, Ganajagaran Mancha organisers and bloggers has been sent to the media.

The envelope of the letter, which arrived on Wednesday from never before heard of ‘Ittahadul Mujahidin’, had no names or addresses. It only had the seal of Sylhet GPO and the date it was sent read Aug 10.

The list had 20 names and the first one, Nilladri Chattopaddhay, was struck out in red ink. Blogger Niladri Chatterjee Niloy was killed in his Gorhan residence on Aug 8 by unknown assailants right after Juma prayers. 

The 19 names that follow include blogger Arif Jebtik, Sushanta Dasgupta, SUST professor and writer Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, sculptor Ferdousi Priyabhashini, Abdur Rahman, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid, Social Welfare Minister Syed Mohsin Ali, Udichi Shilpagoshthi’s Makbul Hossain and MP Suranjit Sengupta.

Bloggers Arifur Rahman, Omi Rahman Pial, writer Humayun Azad’s son Ananya Azad, Ganajagaran Mancha Activist Mahmudul Haque Munshi, Maruf Rasul, university teacher Arafat Rahman, blogger Nirjhar Majumder, Dr Atik, Ashfaque Anup and Nur Nabi Dulal were the others on the list.

Those listed were described as ‘satanic bloggers’, ’enemies of Islam and madrasa education’, ‘atheists’, and ‘Sylhet-haters’.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Deputy Commissioner Muntasirul Islam told bdnews24.com they did not know of the letter and would be treating the matter with all seriousness.

Four bloggers and online activists, all who wrote against religious extremism and were linked to Ganajagaran Mancha, a platform calling for death penalty of war criminals, have been killed this year.

Ansar Al Islam, an organisation which claimed to be the Bangladesh wing of al-Qaeda in Indian Sub-continent (AQIS), claimed credit for Niloy’s killing in an e-mail sent to the media.