Publisher Dipan was thrown down and hacked: Doctors

Doctors conducting the autopsy on publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan say he was thrown down and then hacked up by his assailants.

Kazi Muhammed Abu Sama, chief of forensic department at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, told bdnews24.com that three deep cut marks were evident on back of Dipan's head and his neck and shoulder. 
 
"One of the cut is eleven inches long and four inches deep," he said.

But Sama said there was also one cut mark on the front of the head.

"I think Dipan was thrown down and slashed by sharp weapons on the back of his head, neck and shoulder. It is difficult for anybody to survive for more than five minutes after such a vicious attack," Sama said.

Around 2:30pm on Saturday, publisher Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury Tutul of ‘Suddhaswar’ and two others were hacked by unknown assailants at his office in Dhaka on Saturday.

The three are being treated at the DMCH and doctors say two, including Tutul were in stable conditions.

Three hours later Faisal Arefin Dipan was found murdered in his office in Dhaka.

He was hacked to death at his publishing house at Shahbagh's Aziz Supermarket-- a hub of writers and publishers in Dhaka.

Tutul and Dipan were both close to slain writer-blogger Avijit Roy and had published his titles.

Roy was

murdered

on the Dhaka University Campus during the Amar Ekushe Book Fair in February this year.

Dipan was the only son of well-known writer and professor of Dhaka University’s Bengali department Abul Kashem Fazlul Haque.

Haque said the publisher had left home for office around 1:30pm.

No one received the call on his mobile phone when the family tried reaching him around 4:30pm, he said.

The Dhaka University teacher said he went to the office after around an hour and found his son dead.

Police suspect the attack on two publishers took place around the same time, but they are yet to be certain.

if that was the case, it would point to two groups of assailants involved in the serial attacks.

Meanwhile, forensic experts also failed to get an idea on how long Dipan was lying dead in his office as his body was kept in freezer in the night.

“It seems that the food found in his stomach was taken an hour before his death,” Sama told bdnews24.com.

He said they suspect he was murdered within an hour after lunch.

Four secular bloggers, including Avijit Roy—three in Dhaka and the other in Sylhet—were murdered this year in Bangladesh.

The style of all these murders appears same as that of the publisher—hacking by sharp weapons and targeting the head and the neck.

Autopsies on the slain bloggers, except for one, had been done at the DMCH.

“All the injuries are similar. Even the marks on the body of murdered former PDB chief Khijir Khan were similar. They assailants attacked the same way”, said Sama.

“Sharp and heavy weapons were used in all of these murders. It seems the assailants’ target was the neck,” he added.

Dipan’s body has been handed over to his family.

He will be buried at the Azimpur graveyard after the funeral prayers at the Dhaka University mosque, said family members.