Maj Zia behind blogger killings: DMP

All blogger killings claimed by Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) have been carried out as per the instruction of fugitive fired army official Major Syed Ziaul Haque, also their leader.

Abdul Baten, Joint Commissioner of Detective Branch of police told this at a press briefing at DMP Media Centre on Minto Road organised to brief media on the arrest of ABT militant last night.

As the leader of the ABT, Maj Zia played a vital role in the killings.

The ex-army official is the head of the military operations of the terror outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) who failed to orchestrate a coup in 2011. Since then, he has been on the run and has a Tk 20 lakh bounty on him.

ABT militant held over Niloy-Dipan killings

At the briefing, Abdul Baten claimed that detectives arrested an ABT last night in connection with the murders of secular blogger Niladri Niloy and Faisal Arefin Dipan, owner of Jagriti Prokashani.

The arrestee--Khairul Islam alias Fahim alias Jishan, 24, was arrested from Kamalapur Rail Station around 9:30pm yesterday, Masudur Rahman, deputy commissioner (media) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told The Daily Star.

Khairul, one of the top operatives of ABT, has been working in the intelligence section of the militant outfit since 2014, Abdul Baten told the press briefing.

On primary interrogation, he admitted to his involvement with the murders of free thinkers, he said.

Khairul started to collect information about the Dipan and Niloy since January 2015 and provided those to the outfit’s Askari section (execution section).

On October 31 last year, Dipan was hacked to death at his office at Aziz Super Market in Dhaka’s Shabagh area on broad daylight. ABT had claimed responsibility of the murder.

Blogger Niloy was also hacked to death on August 7 in 2015 at his residence. On that very day, Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) claimed the murder.