The Detective Branch of Police submitted charge sheet against eight accused yesterday, including Chief of Islamist outfit Ansar Ullah Bangla Team Mufti Jasimuddin Rahmania, in the blogger Ahmed Rajeeb Haider murder case.
DB Inspector Nibaron Chandra Barman, also investigation officer of the case, submitted the charge sheet before Dhaka’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court.
General Recording Officer of the court Mokshed Ali Talukder told the Dhaka Tribune: ‘‘I received the charge sheet. It will be placed before Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Rani Chakrabarty Wednesday [today].”
The seven other accused are Faisal Bin Nayeem alias Dwip, Maksudul Hasan alias Anik, Mohammad Ehsan Reza alias Rumman, Nayeem Sikder alias Irad, Nafiz Imtiaz, Salman Yasir Mahmud and Redwanul Azad alias Rana.
All the seven accused are students of North South University (NSU) and were expelled from the university after their arrest. Of the accused, Redwan is on the run while the rest of others are in jail.
The IO of the case also filed an application to the court to issue a warrant of arrest against Redwan. Inspector Nibaron made 55 prosecution witnesses in this charge sheet.
Rajeeb, known as Thaba Baba in the blogging community, was hacked to death on February 15 last year near his Pallabi home, only 10 days into the historic movement at Shahbagh demanding the death penalty for 1971 war criminals and a ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and its students’ body Islami Chhatra Shibir.
Several websites which are allegedly run by Chhatra Shibir activists first disclosed the murder and tried to defend the killing terming Rajeeb “atheist.” Rajeeb was one of the active members of the Shahbagh movement and was vocal on Facebook and blog against Jamaat-Shibir and their institutions, including Islami Bank.
A day after the murder, the victim’s father Nazim Uddin filed a murder case with Pallabi police station.
After two weeks, the IO arrested five NSU students. However, none of them witnessed the killing directly, the investigator said in his report.
The detained NSU students reportedly confessed that they had killed Rajeeb upon the directives of the chief of Ansarullah Bangla Team, a Bangladeshi follower of Al-Qaeda. The organisation aims at establishing Islamic rule through armed revolution.
Mufti Jasim, also the chief of Markajul Ulum Al Islami from Dhaka’s Mohammadpur, was arrested along with 30 of his followers at his house in Barguna on August 12 last year.
On September 2, he made confessional statement before a magistrate but said he had never asked anybody to kill the blogger. As a teacher of Mohammadpur Jamia Rahmania Arabia Madrasa, Mufti Jasim used to preach to his students on various occasions while giving references from the Hadith.
Students of different universities, colleges and schools also visited his madrasa frequently for religious advice, he said.
