Four awarded death for killing Sylhet blogger Ananta Bijoy Das

A Sylhet court has awarded death sentence to four people for killing Sylhet science writer and blogger Ananta Bijoy Das, 32.

Judge of anti-terrorism tribunal court of Sylhet, Nurul Amin Biplab, pronounced the verdict on Wednesday.

According to the case statement, blogger-writer Ananta Bijoy Das, also an activist of Sylhet Ganajagaran Mancha, was hacked to death by a group of assailants in broad daylight in front of his house at Subidbazar in Sylhet city on 12 May 2015.

A banker by profession, Ananta used to write on science and edited a science magazine ‘Jukti’. He was also the general secretary of a council that deals with science and logic.

Ananta Bijoy was also a writer in the ‘Mukto-Mona blog’, founded by science writer Avijit Roy - who had been murdered in February after he came from the USA.

On the next day of the murder, on 13 May, Ratneshwar Das, elder brother of Ananta Bijoy, filed a case against four people with the airport police station.

On 25 May, Police Headquarters asked the Sylhet Metropolitan Police (SMP) to hand over the blogger killing case to the CID for investigation.

CID Inspector Arman Ali submitted a supplementary charge sheet on 9 May 2017. It appealed for release of 10 accused and frame charges against six.

Out of 29 witnesses, 24 deposed in the case. Later, on 14 March, judge Nurul Amin Biplab fixed 30 March as the date for pronouncing he verdict after completion of cross-examinations of the three fugitive accused.