RAB arrests Farabi over Avijit murder

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested one Farabi Shafiur Rahman over the murder of writer and blogger Avijit Roy.

Farabi was earlier arrested for inciting attacks on bloggers on the social media after blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider’s murder in 2013.

He had then secured bail from the High Court.

RAB’s Additional Director General Col Ziaul Ahsan told bdnews24.com that he was nabbed on Monday morning from Dhaka’s Jatrabarhi area while he was leaving the city.

“Fundamentalist blogger Farabi is the prime suspect of writer Avijit Roy’s murder,” Ahsan said.

Farabi had also threatened an online bookshop ‘rokomari.com’ to pull out Roy’s books from their site.

Avijit was hacked to death on Feb 26 by unknown assailants at Dhaka University when he was returning from the Ekushey Book Fair. His wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya was also injured.

The US-based writer-blogger had been receiving regular threats for his writings against communalism, fanaticism and religious superstition.

The international community, including the UN, US and EU, strongly criticised the murder of the founder of Mukto-Mona (Free-thinker), a blog which used scientific facts to address religious radicalism.

The US offered the services of their Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to help investigate the murder, after Bangladesh government took up the matter with it, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali told journalists on Sunday.

RAB Media Wing Director Mufti Mahmud Khan said in a briefing around noon that Avijit and Farabi met each other on Facebook around four to five years ago.

Avijit had blocked the fanatic blogger two years back because of their ideological differences.

“Farabi in different statuses and comments, had posted pictures of Avijit with his family and threatened to kill him when he returned to the country.”

Mufti added that Farabi also posted religiously provocative statuses from a Facebook page called ‘Farabi Blog’.

The RAB official also said that Avijit’s father too had alleged that Farabi was linked to the murder.

Farabi has been arrested over the case.

The RAB in its briefing also said that Farabi had enrolled into Chittagong University to study physics but could not finish studies. He tried to join Hizb-utTahrir in 2010.

He had also served a month in prison for sabotage.

Farabi came into the spotlight in 2013 after he had threatened to kill the Imam who would lead the Namaaz-e-Janaza (Funeral prayer) of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider.

He was arrested on Feb 24 that year under the ICT Act for the threat and was released on bail on Aug 21. Immediately after the release, he started posting statuses and comments propagating murder of atheists.