The Sylhet Anti-Terrorism Tribunal on Wednesday sentenced four youths to death on charge of murder of Ananta Bijoy Dash, a carrier banker, blogger and organiser of Sylhet unit of Ganajagaran Mancha.
Judge Nurul Amin Biplab pronounced the verdict in the case at about noon in a crowded courtyard around seven years after the murder on May 12, 2015.
The convicts are Abul Khayer Rashid Ahmed, 25, a resident of Faljur village, Faysal Ahmed, 27, of Khalpar Talbari village of Kanaighat upazila in Sylhet, Abul Hossain, 25, of the same upazila, and Mamunur Rashid, 25, of Birendranagar village at Tahirpur upazila in Sunamganj, according to the verdict. The special public prosecutor of the tribunal, Muminur Rahman Titu, confirmed New Age of the court order and said the judge also fined the convicts Tk 20,000 each.
He said that the judge, however, acquitted another accused Shafiur Rahman Farabi, 30, of Rikabibazar area in Sylhet city from the charges brought against him in the case since he was in the Dhaka Central Jail when blogger Ananta was killed in Sylhet.
‘Abul Khayer and Farabi were present on the dock of the tribunal when the verdict was announced in the case,’ the SPP said.
Plaintiff’s counsel Mohammed Monir Uddin told New Age that the three other condemned convicts Abul Hossain, Faysal Ahmed and Mamunur Rashid have remained absconding since the filing of the murder case.
Muminur Rahman said that another charged accused Mannan Yahya alias Mannan Rahi, 24, of Purba Faljur village of the Kanaighat upazila, had confessed to being involved in the killing of blogger Ananta.
‘Mannan was excluded from the charge sheet of the case after he died in the Dhaka Central Jail on November 2, 2017’, the plaintiff counsel said.
A group of masked youths swopped on Ananta, 32, also general secretary of Biggan and Zuktibadi Council, near his home of Nurani Residential Area at Subidbazar in the Sylhet city on May 12, 2015.
The attackers hacked Ananta with sharp machetes at around 8:30am on the day minutes after he had started for his workplace of Jauabazar at Chhatak upazila in Sunamganj and left him dead on the spot.
His elder brother Ratneswar Dash filed a murder case with the Biman Bandar police in that night against four persons.
Criminal Investigation Department inspector Arman Ali, also investigation officer in the case, submitted a supplementary charge sheet with the court on February 5 in 2017 against 6 accused, the court sources said.
Later, the tribunal recorded testimonies of 24 out of 29 prosecution witnesses in the case, the sources said.
The ATT judge Nurul Amin Biplab mentioned his observation of the verdict that the main intention of the killers of Ananta was to spread panic among the authors who write against superstition and try to continue the exercise of free thinking and progressiveness in the society.
The judge also observed that though the Ansarullah Bangla Team in a Twitter message had acknowledged the responsibility for killing the blogger Ananta immediately after the incident, but any proof of involvement by the Bangla Team or any other banned organisation in the brutal killing could not be established.
