A Dhaka court has fixed March 18 for passing an order on whether to indict the accused in the blogger Ahmed Rajeeb Haider murder case.
Dhaka's Fourth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court of Judge Ruhul Amin fixed the date on Sunday afternoon.
All the accused charged for the murder were produced before the court.
The accused are Chief of Islamist outfit Ansar Ullah Bangla Team Mufti Jasimuddin Rahmania, North South University students Faisal Bin Nayeem alias Dwip, Maksudul Hasan alias Anik, Mohammad Ehsan Reza alias Rumman, Nayeem Sikder alias Irad, Nafiz Imtiaz, Salman Yasir Mahmud and Redwanul Azad alias Rana.
The Detective Branch of Police submitted charge sheet against the eight accused on January 28 last year.
Rajeeb, known as Thaba Baba in the blogging community, was hacked to death on February 15, 2013 near his Pallabi home, only 10 days into the historic movement at Shahbagh demanding the death penalty for the 1971 war criminals and a ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and its student body Islami Chhatra Shibir.
Several websites, which are allegedly run by Chhatra Shibir activists, first disclosed the murder and tried to defend the murder, terming Rajeeb an “atheist.”
Rajeeb was an active member of the Shahbagh movement, and was vocal on Facebook and blogged against Jamaat-Shibir and their institutions, including Islami Bank.
A day after the murder, the victim’s father Nazim Uddin filed a murder case with Pallabi police station.
After two weeks, the IO arrested five NSU students. However, none of them witnessed the killing directly, the investigator said in his report.
The detained NSU students reportedly confessed they had killed Rajeeb upon the directives of the chief of Ansarullah Bangla Team, a Bangladeshi follower of Al-Qaeda. The organisation aims at establishing Islamic rule through armed revolution.
Mufti Jasim, also the chief of Markajul Ulum Al Islami from Dhaka’s Mohammadpur, was arrested along with 30 of his followers at his house in Barguna on August 12 last year.