Court indicts five Ansarullah Bangla militants for blogger Oyasiqur murder

A Dhaka court has charged five activists of a banned militant outfit for the 2015 murder of blogger Oyasiqur Rahman Babu.

On Wednesday, an additional metropolitan magistrate court indicted the Ansarullah Bangla Team militants and fixed Aug 4 for witnesses’ depositions.

Assistant Public Prosecutor Salauddin Hawlader said that three of the suspects were produced before the court for the hearing.

The remaining two, who are absconding, will be tried in absentia, he said.

On morning of Mar 30 last year, machete-wielding assailants hacked Oyasiqur to death near his home in Dhaka’s Tejgaon area.

Locals managed to nab two of the attackers and handed them to law enforcers while the third suspect was arrested by police later.

Police produced the trio — Zikrullah alias Hasan, Ariful Islam and Saiful — in court for the hearing of charge framing on Wednesday. All of them pleaded not guilty.

Madrasa students, Zikrullah and Ariful were nabbed by locals from the spot while police arrested Saiful later.

The fugitive suspects are Junayed Ahmed alias Taher and Akram Hossain.

Police said the arrested suspects confessed during interrogation that Oyasiqur was murdered for his writings on religious issues.

The 27-year old was working at a travel agency called Fareast Aviation at Motijheel as a trainer after completing his studies from the Tejgaon College in Dhaka.

Son of Tipu Sultan, Oyasiur hailed from Hajipur village in Lakshmipur district’s Ramganj.

He was mainly active on the Facebook where he used to write on religion, science and against communalism.

Oyasiqur was killed barely after a month of the murder of secular writer-blogger Avijit Roy on the Dhaka university campus in a similar way by machete-wielding assailants.

Protesting the killing, Oyasiqur wrote on the banner of his Facebook page: ‘I am Avijit. Words cannot be killed’.