Dhaka, students protest murder of blogger Nazimuddin Samad
The blogger was killed for his secular and democratic ideas. Fellow students block roads around the university where he studied and protest government inaction. According to students, the inability of the police in pursuing the perpetrators of the murders of four other bloggers, "contributed" to Nazimuddin’s death.
Dhaka (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The students of Jagannath University, where Nazimuddin Samad, the blogger hacked to death was studying, took to the streets of Dhaka to protest Government inaction of the face of growing Islamic extremism.
Although no one has yet claimed responsibility for the murder of the 28 year old, the investigators said that the dynamics of the attack resembles the one used by the Islamic group Ansarullah Bangla Team, already banned by the state and accused of the premeditated murder of other free thinkers for being "atheists".
Nazimuddin was murdered in Dhaka on the evening of April 6, under the eyes of dozens of witnesses, on his way home after university classes. He was first struck with machetes and then killed with a gunshot to the head. According to witnesses, while they were attacking him the killers shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is great).
The young man had repeatedly spoken out against the extremist drift in the country and on his Facebook profile he wrote of "not belonging to any religion". He was born in Sylhet and was part of Ganajagaran Mancha movement, which works to the defense of free thought in Bangladesh and calls for the punishment of war criminals of the 1971 liberation struggle.
Nazimuddin’s body was returned yesterday to his family, after it was delivered to Sir Salimullah Medical College in the capital. His fellow students blocked roads around the school. According to them, police inaction in previous murders of four bloggers "contributed" to the student's death.
Kabir Chowdhury Tanmoy, President of Online Activist Forum, said: "Talented young people are being killed one after another, but there is no trace of visible measures against these brutal acts."
For some time, Muslim extremists have been targeting free thinkers and democracy activists, justifying their killing by calling their victims "atheists".
Ahmed Rajib Haider was the first blogger to be killed for his “anti-Islam" ideas in 2013. So far this year, four other bloggers have lost their lives. In February Avijt Roy was murdered near the University Dhaka; in late March, also in the capital, Muslim fundamentalists hacked to death Oyasiqur Rahman; two months later, it was the turn of Ananta Bijoy Das, who was murdered in Sylhet; and finally, Niloy Chakrabarti was killed, execution style, in August in broad daylight, under the eyes of his mother and sister. On October 31, Faisal Dipan Arefin, a publisher with progressive ideas, was stabbed to death.
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