State minister\\\'s kin held over Niloy murder

Police have arrested a nephew of State Minister for Labour and Employment Mujibul Haque Chunnu over the murder of blogger Niladri Chatterjee Niloy, alias Niloy Neel. Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Deputy Commissioner Muntasirul Islam said Jatiya Party leader Chunnu’s nephew Sad Al Nahin was detained from Dhaka’s Uttara and one Masud Rana from Mirpur’s Kalshi on Thursday. He said they were both members of Ansarullah Bangla Team. Police were previously denying an allegation brought by Nahin’s family that he had been detained. Studying BBA at the Dhaka University, Nahin was arrested earlier over the murder attempt on blogger Asif Mohiuddin two years ago. He was freed on bail around a year back. Around a month after the attack on Mohiuddin at Uttara, blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider was killed at Mirpur’s Kalshi. After that, secular bloggers Avijit Roy, Oyasiqur Rahman Babu, and Ananta Bijoy Das were hacked to death on streets in the past six months. Blogger Niloy was killed at his home in East Goran area on August 7. Police claim that banned Islamist outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team is behind the murders. The organisation’s chief Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmani was arrested in August 2013 in the blogger Rajib Haider murder case, reports bdnews24.com.
On August 10, Joint Commissioner (Detective Branch) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Monirul Islam said the banned Islamic militant outfit ABT might have been involved in the killing of blogger Niloy. Talking to reporters, the DB official also said there is similarity between the murder of bloggers killed earlier and that of Niloy. “Prima facie, it seems to us that Ansarullah Bangla Team is involved in the Niloy killing.”
- mbz