Another blogger stabbed at Pallabi

Unnamed assailants on Thursday night knifed a blogger at Pallabi in Dhaka’s Mirpur, police said.

Inspector (investigation) of the Pallabi Police Station Biplab Kishore Shil told bdnews24.com that Saniur Rahman, 28, was stabbed in the head and legs at around 8:30pm near Purabi Cinema Hall.

The Shahbagh uprising activist was returning to his home in Rupnagar Eastern Housing.

Residents of the neighborhood rescued Saniur and rushed him to a local hospital, he added.

Saniur was later moved to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) where he told reporters, “I got on a bus from Farmgate and got down in front of the Purabi Cinema Hall. As I was walking to my way, two bearded youths attacked me. They wore Punjabi.”

He suspected that the attackers might have alighted at the bus stand from the same bus.

Saniur said that he used to write articles in blogs against communalism and the riotous activities run by rowdy activists of the Jamaat-e-Islam and its student wing Islami Chattra Shibir.

Asif Mohiuddin, another blogger and online activist who was also stabbed seriously in the city’s Uttara on the night of Jan 15, commented about the criminal attack on the latest assault in his Facebook status. “He (Saniur) often used to write on Facebook. I also met him once or twice, he is a very well-behaved young man.”

“He was a supporter and activist of the Shahbagh movement, and often used to harshly criticise the religion-based parties like Jamaat, Shibir and Hizb Ut-Tahrir.”

Mahmudul Haque Munsi, member of the Blogger and Online Activist Network which started the massive protest at Shahbagh intersection, said that he did not know Saniur.

Deputy Commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (Mirpur zone) Imtiaz Ahmed told bdnews24.com: “I have heard that Saniur is a blogger, but he is now out of danger.”

He said police were trying to arrest the attackers.

The attack on the youth came within 20 days of the murder of another blogger and Shahbagh civil uprising activist Ahmed Rajib Haider in front of the gate of his house at Palash Nagar in Pallabi on the night of Feb 15.

Rajib was also an active activist of the ongoing movement at Shahbagh demanding execution of the convicted war criminals and outlawing Jamaat.

Rajib’s friends and family claimed that he was murdered by assailants tied to Jamaat and Shibir – a charge both organisations have denied.

Detectives on Mar 2 arrested the five students of North South University in different parts of the city for their alleged involved in the killing. Two machetes, four knives, one bicycle, one pair of shoes, seven cellphones and a school bag were recovered from them.

Two of them admitted to the police that they were directly engaged in the murder, while three others assisted them.

They also admitted that a Shibir activist orchestrated the killing of blogger Rajib.