Police claim significant progress in blogger Avijit murder case

Police have claimed to have made significant progress in their investigation of the murder of Avijit Roy. Monirul Islam, chief of the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit made the disclosure while talking to the media at an informal briefing on Saturday. However, police have said they need to arrest two more suspects to submit the charge sheet. The case was transferred to the CTTC from the Detective Branch of police in December last year. “The three suspects we previously arrested gave confessional statements in court accepting their culpability in the sensational murder. Earlier, RAB arrested another seven suspects, but it was found that they were uninvolved in the case,” Monirul added. “However, analyzing the confessions and further investigation revealed that their actions were the result of instructions from the sacked Maj Zia, and he was present when the incident occurred,” said the CTTC chief. Monirul further added: “We also found out that five previously unsuspected people were also involved in the murder including Zia, who is now on the run. We will be able to submit a charge sheet after we arrest at least two of them.” When asked about Zia's whereabouts Monirul said: “Zia was in Bangladesh a few months ago, but now we have no information about where he might be. He might lie low somewhere outside the country for a while.” On February 26 of 2015, US-based Bangladeshi blogger Avijit Roy was murdered near the Teacher-Student Centre of Dhaka University by then-unidentified assailants in an attack that also left his wife severely wounded.