‘Sacked major Zia directly involved in Avijit murder’

Sacked major Syed Mohammad Ziaul Haque, a suspected coordinator of the banned Islamic outfit Ansar-Al-Islam, was directly involved in the killing of blogger and writer Avijit Roy, said counter terrorism chief Monirul Islam.

He disclosed this while talking to reporters at the DMP media centre on Sunday.

Sacked major Syed Mohammad Ziaul Haque, known as Major Zia, was directly involved in the blogger killing as he was present on the spot during the murder, he said.

“Though Zia has been absconding, we’ve got enough evidence to continue the trial process in the Avijit killing case,” the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC) chief added.

Detective Branch (DB) of the DMP was investigating the murder case. The CTTC got the charge to investigate the case three months ago, the CTTC chief said.

He said earlier DB police, Rapid Action Battalion and other law enforcement agencies arrested seven suspected killers.

One of the suspected killers named Mukul Rana was killed during a shootout with the detectives.

Monirul said the CTTC arrested three suspects-Mozammel Hossain Saimon, Arafat alias Shams alias Sajjat and Abu Siddique alias Sohel--, who have already gave their confessional statements about their involvement in the killing before a magistrate of a Dhaka court. Besides, they revealed that three of the arrested suspects out of seven were not involved in the killing.

A bounty of Tk 2 million was announced by police on 2 August in 2016 for the discharged army man Zia’s arrest.

Avijit, son of noted physicist Ajoy Roy and founder of Mukto-Mona blog, was hacked to death, and his wife Rafida Afrin Banya was injured as ‘militants’ attacked them with meat cleavers near TSC on the Dhaka University Campus on 26 February in 2015.