Police arrest State Minister Chunnu’s nephew, another man over blogger Niloy’s

Two suspected members of an outlawed Islamist group known as Ansarullah Bangla Team were arrested in Dhaka for links to the killing, senior police official Mahbub Alam said.

Studying BBA at the Dhaka University, Nahin was arrested earlier over the murder attempt on blogger Asif Mohiuddin two years ago. In May, 33-year-old blogger Ananta Bijoy Das was killed in a machete attack in Sylhet city.

Police said they did not know who was behind the threat but were taking it seriously, and the country’s elite security force was investigating.

After blogger Rajeeb Haider was hacked to death in February 2013, most of the bloggers went into hiding, fearing for their lives.

Bangladesh’s police have been criticized for their reaction to the murder of a secular blogger for the fourth time this year.

Detectives are now searching for Redwanul Azad Rana, operations chief of Ansarullah Bangla, a Muslim group which has been blamed for previous attacks on bloggers, and “cell leaders” Nabir Hossain Nabin and Abdul Kabir alias Zaber.

“We condemn all these killings”.

Within weeks as the Islamist body also launched mass protests calling for execution of the online atheists, the bloggers began facing hate attacks. “It’s ridiculous that those who are going to the police are not being given protection at this point”, she said.

BDNews24 conveyed that an email allegedly sent from Mufti Abdullah Ashraf, the spokesman for the branch, to Bangladesh media also said that AQIS committed the murder. People in the neighbourhood had nabbed two suspected killers from the scene and handed them over to police. “But we need to remember that hurting religious sentiments is a crime according to our law”. He claimed his complaints were not taken seriously. “Do not hurt anyone’s religious belief”, Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque said.

“If someone feels that any writing has offended his religious sentiment, he should move the court”.

Bangladesh’s legal code is secular and based on British Common law.

He was freed on bail around a year back. “He was killed because there is no justice in the country”, Imran Sarker, the head of a network of activists and bloggers, reportedly said last week.

Blogger Niloy was killed at his home at east Gorhan on August 7.