Rafida Ahmed Bonya, widow of slain writer-blogger Avijit Roy, has said there cannot be any justice without eradicating the root of extremism that led to the death of many bloggers, publishers and homosexuals before and after of Avijit’s murder.
Avijit was killed in February 2015 during a spree of murders of several free thinkers or bloggers at the hands of extremist groups in the country.
“Simply prosecuting a few foot soldiers -- and ignoring the rise and roots of extremism -- does not mean justice for Avi’s death, nor for the deaths of the ‘bloggers, publishers and homosexuals’ before and after him as part of the serial killings,” she said in her statement.
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"Last week [in the verdict following the murder of Avi's publisher, Faisal Arefin Dipon, in 2015], we learned that Haque continued to mastermind the serial killings of other secular writers and publishers for eight months after Avi and I were attacked. And yet the Bangladeshi authorities failed to put him behind bars,” she added.
Bonya released the statement on her Facebook profile on Tuesday following the court’s verdict.
She said the verdict given by the court will not bring peace to her family as she termed the murderers of her husband as serial killers.
Mentioning that the court judged whether or not the attackers murdered Avijit for writing books and blogs about science, philosophy and religion, she said the verdict did not provide closure for her or her family.
In her statement, Bonya pointed to some discrepancies in the case.
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Bonya alleged that during the investigation of the case no one reached out to her although she was a direct witness and victim of the attack that killed Avijit.
“In January, the state lawyer in the case publicly lied, saying that I did not agree to be a witness in the trial. The truth is, no one from Bangladesh’s government or the prosecution has ever contacted me,” she said.
"The two main culprits -- Sayed Ziaul Haque, the top commander, and Akram Hossain, the top operative of the militant group that attacked us -- have never been caught," she stated.
File photo of Avijit Roy and his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya Collected from FacebookShe also questioned why Mukul Rana, one of the top operatives of the militant group that attacked Avijit and Bonya, had been killed in crossfire.
Bonya also raised questions about the funding for these extremist groups.
She pointed out that the Dipon murder case verdict from last week included a line that states: “In 2015, money used to flow in to kill bloggers, publishers and homosexuals in the country.”
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She said: "I want to know who has investigated this flow of money. What will these verdicts accomplish, if we don't get to the source of the money or rather to the source of the killings?"
She also asked why the organizers of the event that Avijit attended before the murder had never been investigated.
“On February 26, 2015, Avi and I were invited to meet a group of science writers. The people who organized that event kept us waiting for hours. Finally, we met the group in the evening. After the event, we were attacked, and Avi was killed,” she wrote.
