Two students were, on Friday, awarded death penalty and six
persons, including outlawed Ansarullah Bangla Team chief, received various jail
terms by a Bangladesh court for killing secular blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider,
nearly three years after he was hacked to death near his home in Dhaka.
Special Trial Tribunal-3 Judge, Sayeed Ahmed, pronounced the verdict in the presence of seven of the accused. One death row convict is on the run.
The judge sentenced former private university students Md Faisal Bin Nayem alias Dweep and absconding Redwanul Azad Rana to death. They were also fined taka 10,000 each.
Read: Protests Follow Death of Secular Bangladeshi Writers and Bloggers
Maksudul Hasan alias Anik was given life term with a fine of
taka 10,000. Md Ehsan Reza alias Rumman, Nayem Sikdar alias Iraj and Nafis
Imtiaz were given 10 years imprisonment with taka 5,000 fine each. Sadman Yasir Mahmud
was given three years in prison and taka 2,000 as fine.
These students had vowed to kill “atheist bloggers”, the investigation officer said in the charge sheet. They targeted Rajib “for his blog posts under the nickname of Thabababa” and carried out the murder in two separate groups.
Mufti Jashimuddin Rahmani, the chief of banned militant outfit ABT, was given five years in jail and Taka 2,000 as fine with two months of additional imprisonment in default.
Read: No Country for Bloggers: Another Bangladeshi Hacked by Extremists
Haidar, also an activist of Shahbagh movement, was hacked to death on February 15, 2013 near his house at Mirpur. His body brutally mutilated.
He was the first of the five bloggers killed so far.
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