Blogger Rajib murder: Death row convict among 2 held

A team of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit today arrested two people including a death row convict of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider murder case.

Condemned convict Rezwanul Azad Rana and his aide Ashraf, an Ansarullah Bangla Team member, were held from the city’s Uttara area around 2:00 pm, Deputy Commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police media wing Masudur Rahman told The Daily Star.

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Rajib Haidar, a blogger and activist of Shahbagh movement, was hacked to death on February 15, 2013, near his house at Mirpur in Dhaka. He used to write against Jamaat-Shibir and war criminals on different blogs under the pseudo name of Thaba Baba.

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A Dhaka court on December 31, 2015, handed down death penalty to two people -- Rana, 34, and Faisal Bin Nayem alias Dweep, 24, -- for killing Rajib Haider. They have also been fined Tk 10,000 each.

The court also awarded different jail terms to six others, including the chief of banned Islamist outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team, in the case.

Rana was the mastermind behind the killing, and Dweep hacked Rajib to death.

‘Rana was held in Malaysia recently’ 

Malaysian intelligence forces tracked Rana down and made the arrest recently following information provided by the Bangladeshi law enforcers, CTTC unit Chief Monirul Islam told journalists at the Central Shaheed Minar premises.

However, after was sent back to Bangladesh today, law enforcers intentionally did not arrest them at the airport and followed them to the address at Uttara and made the arrest there, he said.

Rana fled to Malaysia in 2014 under fake passport, Monirul said.

After this latest arrest all the convicts of the case are now under arrest, he said.

During his stay in Malaysia, Rana got involved with another militant named Junoon Shikder who inspired him to join Islamic State (IS) and get Bayat. Then he took the Bayat and tried to go to Syria but failed, the CTTC chief also said.

However, he kept trying and attempted to go the Philippines for getting training from IS.

The process of executing his death penalty is still going on as no appeal was filed on behalf of him yet, he said.

A new case is being filed against him and tomorrow he will be taken to the court to with a prayer of a ten-day remand, Monirul added.