Publisher Bachchu killingPolice, family suspect Islamist militants

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Nuruzzaman Labu, back from Munshiganj
Published : 02:00, Jun 13, 2018 | Updated : 02:00, Jun 13, 2018

Shahzahan Bachchu had two wives. His second wife Afsana Jahan lives in Kakaldi with their son and daughter while his first wife Lutfa Zahan lives in Dhaka with their two daughters.Investigators as well as relatives suspect secular writer Shahzahan Bachchu has been killed for his active campaigns against Islamist radicals.
Known for his free-thinking works, Bacchu owned a Dhaka-based publishing house Bishaka Prakashani, which has published books of several poets, including Independence Award winner Nirmalendu Goon.
Islamist zealots had been threatening him for quite some time for his writings, mostly on the social media, according to family members and people close to him.
Quoting witnesses, police in Munshiganj said four assailants on two motorbikes shot Bachchu dead at his native Kakaldi village in the district’s Sirajdikhan Upazila.
On Monday afternoon, Bacchu was chatting with locals at a pharmacy. The unidentified men opened fire as soon as he came out and was heading to a nearby grocery shop. The assailants hurled bombs before fleeing the scene.
On Tuesday, members of police, RAB and the Detective Branch were seen recording witnesses testimonies at the crime scene in the Kakaldi Bazar.
Nahid Hossain, who owns the grocery shop Bachchu was heading to, said he was busy with preparing Iftar to break his fast and that there were some customers in the shop.
Hossain told Bangla Tribune that around 6:30pm, he heard gunshots followed by a loud bang and a smokescreen on the street with panicked people fleeing.
“It seemed everything happened within two minutes. I didn’t see what happened, but came to know later that there were four man on motorcycles wearing helmets.”
Writer and publisher Shahzahan Bachchu was the former general secretary of the Munshiganj unit of Communist Party of Bangladesh. (FACEBOOK PHOTO)Mozibur Rahman, who runs a shop in the same market, echoed saying that it all happened very quickly.
“There were at least 50 people in the local market area. People started to run when shots were fired and then the bomb went off. All of it happened in barely two minutes.”
The pharmacy owner Anwar Hossain, a doctor, have faced at least two rounds of questioning by investigators until Tuesday morning.
His wife Asma Aktar told Bangla Tribune that Bacchu had called her husband in the afternoon on phone before going to pharmacy. “My husband said that he was shot by two men wearing helmets as soon as he stepped out from the pharmacy. The attackers exploded bombs before fleeing on motorcycles.”
Islamist radicals’ link suspected
Shahzahan Bachchu had two wives. His second wife Afsana Jahan lives in Kakaldi with their son and daughter while his first wife Lutfa Zahan lives in Dhaka with their two daughters.
Afsana said that Bachchu was based in Dhaka until three years ago, when he moved to the village.
“He has told me several times that something bad might happen to him, which turned out to be true. It seems radicals might have killed him for his writings,” she told Bangla Tribune.
Bachchu’s daughter from his first wife, Durba Zahan confirmed that her father had no feud with anyone over any issue, including property and said she, too, suspects the motive was her father’s campaign against radicalism.
Kakaldi resident Anisur Rahman was close with Bachchu. “He often spoke about receiving threats, even used to show us the threats on Facebook,” he told Bangla Tribune.
According to Rahman, Bachchu even had considered leaving the country. “He had gone to India after obtaining a one-year visa. The plan was to seek asylum, but he changed his mind and returned 13 days later.”
Along with Munshiganj police, the counterterrorism unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police is also probing the killing and the investigations primarily focus on Islamist militants.
Investigators said radical group Ansar Al Islam, which claims to be the Bangladesh affiliate of the al-Qaeda in Indian Sub-Continent (AQIS), usually targets secular campaigners as they view them as atheists. But the murder weapons of the early 2013 attacks it claimed were sharp weapons.
The neo-JMB, the splinter group of banned Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) which follows the Islamic State, has used fire arms for attacks, but it usually target religious minority and foreigners.
A counterterrorism official said that the killing of Bachchu was an attempt to let the authorities to know of their existence. Investigators are also looking into the possibility of a merger between terror groups.
Deaths of secular writers, bloggers, online activists and a publisher in attacks by suspected Islamist militants shook Bangladesh for months following the 2015 killing of US-based writer-blogger Avijit Roy near the TSC in the Dhaka University campus.
His publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan, who ran Jagriti Prokashoni, was hacked to death on Oct 31 the same year inside his publishing house in the capital’s Shahbagh.
Hours before Dipan’s murder, terrorists attacked publisher Ahmedur Rashid Tutul of Shuddhaswar Prakashani in his office in Dhaka’s Lalmatia. He, however, survived the attack.
Radical Islamist groups claimed credit for most of these attacks and the law enforcers have made several arrests in connection with the attacks.

/zmi/
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