Detectives now claim that Rajshahi University teacher Prof AKM Shafiul Islam was killed over a rivalry with a female officer of the accounts department, not by militants or members of Islami Chhatra Shibir.
The accounts officer, Nasrin Akhter, earlier told the Dhaka Tribune that she had never met the teacher, who was killed on November 15 last year in Rajshahi city’s Chouddopai area.
The matter of rivalry was first suggested by the Rapid Action Battalion and at the time police had not accepted the version.
“We have made a significant development in the investigation and hope to submit the report shortly,” Rajshahi DB Inspector Ashiqur Rahman, also the investigation officer, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
He claimed that Prof Shafiul was killed over a conflict with the university’s accounts Section Officer Nasrin Akhter as he had misbehaved with her.
Elite force RAB and police so far arrested 18 people for their suspected link to the killing.
“We earlier saw a Facebook page named Ansar Al-Islam Bangladesh 2 and recently al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in a video message taking responsibility for the murder. But these are nothing but efforts to divert the case,” the DB official said.
He, however, did not give any specific answer in response to questions why they had arrested two persons for operating the Facebook page. Police then claimed that a Chhatra Shibir leader of Bogra had been behind creating the page. The investigators are yet to trace the Chhatra Shibir leader.
The Dhaka Tribune earlier published an exclusive interview of Nasrin and other staff at the accounts department. All of them said she had never met Prof Shafiul and that no one saw them talking together on campus. They alleged that the law enforcers were trying to protect the real killers.
Who killed Avijit, Oyasiqur?
The Detective Branch of police officials dealing with secular writer Avijit Roy and activist Oyasiqur Rahman Babu murder cases are yet to determine who had killed the two men on February 26 and March 30 this year.
Even though they suspect Ansarullah members for the murders, the names of banned militant outfits Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Hizb ut-Tahrir also came up during the investigation.
The officials are now verifying the AQIS video and the information given by the three arrestees in the Oyasiqur murder case.
Two of the trio arrested soon after the killing have links to Hefazat-e-Islam’s Hathazari Madrasa while one of them was arrested earlier in Narsingdi with JMB militants.
The only person arrested in Avijit murder case is Shafiur Rahman Farabi, a leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, who had long been threatening the US citizen with death and spreading hate speech on Facebook and blogs.
Ansarullah leader Redwanul Azad Rana is believed to have masterminded the killing of Avijit. But he fled the country soon after the killing, though the police have declared bounty for his arrest.
Rana is also a charge-sheeted accused in the blogger Ahmed Rajeeb Haider murder in 2013.
Top US investigating agency FBI is assisting the DB police in the Avijit murder probe. They have collected evidence and specimens from the crime scene and sent them to the US for lab tests. They are yet to place test reports.
When contacted, Saiful Islam, additional deputy commissioner of DB police, yesterday said they were yet to get any information from the arrestees about their outfit or its leader.
Monirul Islam, joint commissioner and chief of DB police, said they had identified four to five people who might have killed Avijit but could not trace them.