Dhaka, March 11
Evidence related to the murder
of Bangladesh-born blogger-writer Avijit Roy has been given to the US's
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), police said on Wednesday.
Dhaka
Metropolitan Police spokesperson Monirul Islam said on Wednesday that
Bangladeshi investigators handed over 12 or 13 pieces of evidence,
including two machetes, a bag and blood samples to the US investigative
agency, bdnews24.com reported.
Bio-engineer Roy, a US citizen,
had been receiving threats from radicals for his secular blogging. Two
of his books were published in this year's Ekushey Book Fair.
His
assailants attacked him and his wife on February 26 on the Dhaka
University (DU) campus while they were returning from the book fair.
Avijit died soon after being rushed to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospitals.
His
wife and fellow blogger Rafida Ahmed Banna, also a US citizen, was
seriously injured and went back to the US for better treatment.
Police recovered the two machetes and the bag just 50 yards away from the crime scene.
An
FBI team has already inspected the spot of the crime near the Teachers
and Students Centre (TSC), located in the heart of the university
campus.
They have also spoken to the slain writer's father Ajay Roy, a former physics teacher at the university.
On
Tuesday, Dhaka's chief metropolitan magistrate allowed the evidential
items to be examined at the FBI's laboratory after investigators filed a
plea.
A man, Shafiur Rahman Farabi, was arrested from Dhaka four days after the incident .
Farabi, known for preaching radicalism, had reportedly threatened, on Facebook, to kill Avijit.
The policemen on the Dhaka University campus did not act to save
Bangladesh-born blogger-writer Avijit Roy but simply looked on while he
was being killed, his widow Rafida Ahmed Banna said on Wednesday.
"While
Avijit and I were being ruthlessly attacked, the local police stood
close by but did not act," Banna, who survived the February 26 attack,
said on her Facebook account.
"Now, we demand that the Bangladeshi government do everything in its power to bring the murderers to justice."
The
couple, who had arrived in Dhaka from the US a few days before the
incident, were returning from the Amar Ekushey Book Fair when they were
attacked by machete-wielding assailants on the university campus,
bdnews24.com reported.
Few hours after the attack, Roy died at
the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital due to the deep gashes on his
head. Banna suffered severe head wounds and one of her thumbs was sliced
off.
Roy, a bio-engineer, had angered fundamentalists and received repeated death threats for writing against religious fanaticism.
Banna, a US citizen, is now in the US after the state department arranged her return.
She
had earlier told her father-in-law, renowned professor Ajay Roy, that
she remembers the attackers' faces and will be able to identify them.
According
to her, there were at least five of them, all around 25 years of age.
"They were in jeans and T-shirts. None had beards," the professor said.
Roy
never believed that an attack so heinous could take place on the
campus, reputed to be a space for progressive movements and the place
where he grew up, Banna wrote.
The detective branch has been investigating the murder with assistance from the FBI.
On March 3, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested "fundamentalist blogger" Farabi Shafiur Rahman, a prime suspect.
Detectives said they have been trying to find out if the attack was carried out by his followers or Farabi himself.
He
was earlier arrested for inciting attacks on bloggers on social media
after blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider was hacked to death in 2013.
