Bangladeshi detectives have decided to get the evidence – collected in connection with the Avijit killing – tested in the FBI’s laboratory. They have also decided to seek permission from the court in this regard.
Monirul Islam, chief of the Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), disclosed these to reporters at their Media Centre yesterday. He however did not say when they are going to make the move.
The evidence include a severed finger of Avijit’s wife Bonna, two machetes and a bag – all collected from near the TSC roundabout on the Dhaka University campus.
In the bag, there were some papers – believed to have been used for wrapping the machetes, a jeans pant and some pills.
A US citizen and bio-engineer by profession, Avijit Roy was hacked to death and his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonna critically injured by miscreants still to be identified near the TSC roundabout on February 26. Bonna was flown to the USA last week for better treatment.
A team from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, better known as the FBI, arrived in Dhaka on March 4 to assist DB – the local investigators.
The FBI agents visited the crime scene on March 6 and retraced Avijit’s footsteps on the day of his murder.
On Sunday, the FBI team went to the office of the police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Dhaka and talked to the forensic team who collected the evidence. The agents also inquired about the facilities at CID’s laboratory.
Meanwhile, the DB said they had been following some social media users who had threatened Avijit for his write-ups.
They have already arrested Shafiur Rahman Farabi, a fanatic hate campaigner on social media and an activist of the banned Islamic militant outfit Hizb-ut Tahrir.
“Detectives are working to find out those who had posted comments on Farabi’s Facebook page supporting Avijit’s murder,” DB chief Monirul said.
“They take Farabi as their leader. We are trying to find out if the murder was carried out by his followers or Farabi himself. Primary investigation suggests that they are mostly students,” he said.
Police have made a list of 10 more suspects in connection with the killing and will arrest them soon, he said.
Farabi was nabbed by RAB on March 3 and was later shown arrested by the DB as one of the prime suspects in the Avijit murder.
Fundamentalist blogger Farabi got arrested once before for inciting lethal attacks on another progressive blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider during the Shahbagh movement in 2013.