Publisher Dipan died of spinal cord injury

Faisal Arefin Dipan, whose publishing house published a book of slain writer-blogger Avijit Roy, died of spinal cord injury, says the autopsy report.

Dhaka Medical College Hospital Forensic Department Head Prof Dr Kazi Mohammad Abu Sama disclosed the information to the journalists on Sunday morning.

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The autopsy of the slain publisher was completed by the department's Professor Prodip Biswas around 10:30am.

Dr Kazi said: “We have found three major injuries on his body during the autopsy. The injury on his neck, which was four inches deep and around 11.5 inches long, had broken his spinal cord that led to his death.”

While talking about the time of the murder, he said: “We can not confirm the exact time of the death but he was killed almost an hour after his lunch as we found rice in his stomach.

“Dipan was forced to the floor and then hacked from behind with sharp weapons. It has similarity with the murders of the bloggers in the country as all of them were hacked with sharp weapons near their neck in the same manner,” he added.

Dipan was hacked to death in the capital's Aziz Supermarket on Saturday evening, a few hours after another of Avijit's publishers, Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, came under similar attack in the capital's Lalmatia area.

Dipan's publishing house Jagriti Prakashani published slain writer-blogger Avijit Roy's book Biswasher Virus (The Virus of Faith).