Just a day after Jagriti Prokashoni publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan was hacked to death, the owner of another leading publishing house has received a death threat – allegedly from a militant group.
Somoy Prakashan Publisher Farid Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that he received an SMS text in the morning threatening him with death for publishing secular works.
The SMS reads: “You have published many books by atheists, you have committed many sins. Prepare to die!” The text was signed off by a group named Al-Ahrar, UK.
However, no such group is in the UK’s list of proscribed terrorist organisations.
Farid said the text came at 9:48am from the mobile number 01721425008.
The publisher is yet to file any general diary with police, but he said the officer-in-charge of Sutrapur police station contacted him after hearing about the matter.
On Saturday, Jagriti Prokashani publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan was hacked to death by unidentified assailants in Shahbagh. Earlier in the day, several men used machetes and guns to critically injure Shuddhashar publication publisher Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, blogger Ranadipam Basu, and poet Tareq Rahim in Lalmatia.
Both Dipan and Tutul had published works of slain writer-blogger Avijit Roy.
Following the death threat to Farid, DB Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam said: “We are often receiving news about others receiving death threats and we are trying to ensure security for them.”
Monirul, also the spokesperson for the DMP, added that the police had to use its own intelligence to assess the credibility of the threats as it was not possible to analyse all the threats that were made on the internet.
He requested people to immediately notify police if they received any threat.
“We will take action after assessing the threat. We have already increased police visibility and check posts. As we do not have specialised facilities, we have some limitations. But we are trying and seeing success in some cases but not in others.”