Bangladesh intelligence agencies have yet to confirm the claim of the Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) that they were responsible for murder of Bangladesh-born US citizen blogger Avijit Roy, reports UNB.
When his attention was drawn to the AQIS's claim, State Minister for Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on Sunday told the news agency that the intelligence agencies had not yet confirmed the reported claim.
"I can't say anything over the claim before being clear about," he further said.
The junior minister also said he would speak about the claim only after knowing about it.
Indian English daily the Indian Express in its online edition released a report on Sunday that Asim Umar, the Indian-born head of AQIS, claimed responsibility for a string of attacks that killed several secular writers and intellectuals in Bangladesh and Pakistan, including the prominent writer and secular activist Avijit Roy who was hacked to death on a Dhaka street in February.
Avijit Roy, son of noted physicist Ajoy Roy and founder of Mukto-Mona blog, was killed and his wife Rafida Afrin Banya injured seriously as unidentified criminals stabbed them near TSC on the Dhaka University campus on February 26.
"Like the companions of the Prophet who defended him with their lives," Umar said in the statement adding, "The mujahideen of al-Qaeda have dispatched to hell many who blasphemed against God, and insulted the Prophet."
In addition to Roy, Umar named slain Bangladeshi intellectual Ahmad Rajib Haidar and Rajshahi University scholar AKM Shaiful Islam as victims of al-Qaeda hit squads, the Indian Express in its online report said.
AQIS is an Islamist militant organisation which aims to fight the governments of Pakistan, India, Myanmar and Bangladesh in order to establish Islamic state.
