Assailants believed to be Islamist militants entered an apartment building posing as potential tenants and killed a secular blogger in Bangladesh’s capital on Friday, in the fourth such deadly attack this year, police said. Police official Mustafizur Rahman identified the victim as 40-year-old Niloy Chowdhury and said he was hacked to death in his apartment. The motive was not immediately clear. The victim’s family said his real name was Niloy Chottopadhay and that he used a different name on social media.
Asha Moni, the victim’s wife, said at least four young people attacked her husband.Hours after the assault, Ansar-al-Islam, which intelligence officials believe is affiliated with al-Qaida on the Indian subcontinent, sent an email to media organizations claiming responsibility for the killing and calling the blogger an enemy of Allah. The authenticity of the email could not be independently confirmed. The victim’s friends said he had received several threats recently, prompting him to remove all his photos from his blog. They said he was a secular blogger and had a Facebook account with the name “Niloy Neel” in which he criticized radical Islamists at home and abroad. The killing is the fourth of a secular blogger since February, when a Bangladeshi-American man who was also critical of Islam, Avijit Roy, was hacked to death on the Dhaka University campus while walking with his wife. Two others were attacked and killed in March and May, one in Dhaka and another in the northeastern city of Sylhet. While it is generally perceived to be another outbreak of religious violence in a country that has a sizeable conservative Muslim population, this spree is rooted in the tussle between Sheikh Hasina’s government and the Jamaat-e-Islami – both of whom view the lives of secular bloggers as expendable.Shiekh Hasina’s government is purportedly secular, yet the decisions of the war crime tribunals constituted for the 1971 war have put her under severe pressure from Islamic groups, and she is willing to make certain tradeoffs. Her situation is reminiscent of the last stages of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s regime, where he made wide concessions towards Islamic groups in a bid to appease them, a move that is the basis for some of the most oppressive laws in Pakistan. Shiekh Hasina is arresting and prosecuting secular writers despite belonging to a secular party; based on a list provided to the government by religious groups – a list that was circulated by these groups to encourage vigilante-style attacks, and perhaps the one being used to identify present victims. If she continues to target secular writers and turn blind eye towards the murders – as she has up till now – not only will the fundamental parties get momentum, their violence will be justified.
It is time someone takes a stand for secular viewpoints in South Asia. In Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, religious parties get unlimited access to public forums and spaces, while secular proponents are forced to hide. Those that don’t, like Salman Taseer, are murdered and the murder is showered with roses. Shiekh Hasina is at the forefront of this struggle. She must learn from the lessons of the past.
pk.shafaqna.com
