The trial in the killing of blogger-writer Avijit Roy has kicked off with a court in Dhaka indicting six people over the 2015 incident.

On Thursday (Aug 1), the Anti-Terrorism Tribunal fixed Sep 11 for recording witnesses’ testimonies before framing charges against the suspects, including sacked Bangladesh Army major Syed Mohammad Ziaul Haque, court clerk Ruhul Amin told Bangla Tribune.

The others accused of the murder on the Dhaka University campus are Mojammel Husain alias Saimon, Md. Abu Siddique Sohel, 38, Md Arafat Rahman, 24, Shafiur Rahman Farabi, 29, and Akram Hossain.

Investigators filed the charge sheet with the court in April this year.

Bangladeshi American writer, Avijit Roy, who founded the blog ‘Muktomona’ (free thinkers) and his wife Bonya were attacked on the night of Feb 26, 2015, on the Dhaka University Campus.

Islamist zealots had been threatening Avijit, a bioengineer and a naturalised US citizen, for his active campaign against Islamist radicals, for quite some time.

The case was initially investigated for three years by the Detective Branch and was later handed over to the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit.

Investigators said all of the accused except for Rabbi were involved with banned Islamist militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team.

Fugitives major Zia and Akram are the masterminds of the killing while Farabi was charged for instigating the murder, investigators had said earlier, adding that Md Mukul Rana alias Shafiqul Islam alias Hadi, who was involved in the killing, died in a shootout with the DB.

The investigators also said that accused Saimon, Sohel and Arafat had made confessional statements in court admitting to their involvement in the murder.