The country’s first online bookstore has stopped sale of some books after death threats from an Islamist fanatic on Facebook.
in a conversation with the Dhaka Tribune on Sunday, Rokomari.com has admitted that it has temporarily halted sale of books written by Avijit Roy.
The move came in view of death threats on Facebook issued by Farabi Shafiur Rahman, the man who threatened to kill the Imam who conducted the Namaz-e-Janaza of slain blogger Rajib Haider.
“If Sohag does not stop the sale of books written by Avijit Roy, he will suffer the same fate as Thaba Baba (alias of blogger Rajib Haider),” Farabi said.
In the post, Farabi specified the office address of the Rokomari.com and called upon his “Islamist friends” in the adjacent locality to attack.
Rokomari.com Chairman Mahmudul Hasan Sohag confirmed the Dhaka Tribune that sale of Avijit Roy’s books has been halted temporarily.
“We are holding a meeting in this regard. Any updates will be notified later.”
Later,Rokomari.com has issued a message in this regard for their readers on the official facebook fan page.
The message read: "After the recent controversies, we received a strong message that now it is necessary to finalise the policy on displaying books on the website. A review committee has already started working to shape a policy under which no book that raises controversy will be shown on our site."
Writer Avijit Roy has condemned the sale of his books in Rokomari.com. “It is very unfortunate that Rokomari has fallen into the trap of Farabi.”
Meanwhile, the section of books authored by Avijit Roy read “Out of Print” on Rokomari.com until the time of filing this report on Sunday evening.
