Jamaat activist held over professor’s murder, say police

The murder case has been handed over to the Detective Branch of Police, to be investigated on "top priority".

Police arrested a young man on Sunday, reportedly an activist of Jamaat-e-Islami, in connection with the murder of A.F.M. Rezaul Karim Siddiquee in northern Rajshahi, but rejected the claim of the involvement of the Islamic State (IS) in the killing.

A senior police officer admitted that Saturday’s murder bore similarity to the previous killings of bloggers. However, he claimed that those behind the murders were local Islamists and purported messages from IS and al-Qaeda were only aimed at confusing the investigators.

Siddiquee, a professor at the English department of Rajshahi University, was hacked to death by two unidentified gunmen on Saturday morning near his home in Rajshahi when he was waiting for a university bus to go to the campus.

The murder case has been handed over to the Detective Branch of Police, to be investigated on “top priority”.

Though monitoring group SITE reports that the IS has claimed responsibility for the murder for the professor’s alleged views on religion, the murdered professor had reportedly never written or spoken anything against religion.

Family members, friends, colleagues and students of Prof. Siddiquee found him “a quiet man who loved music and culture”. They also said the late professor was not involved in any politics, nor he did he ever receive any threat from any radical group. Apart from teaching, Prof. Siddique edited a literary journal

Komal Gandhar and was involved with some cultural organisations. He loved to play musical instruments, especially sitar. He had also established a music school at his residence, testified locals.

Prof. M. Shahidullah, president of Rajshahi University Teachers Association, said, “It is beyond our imagination that he can be a victim of such gruesome killing. He was never engaged in writing against any person or religion.”

Attacks on teachers with a liberal bent of mind at Rajshahi University, believed to be a den of radical Islamist groups, is nothing new. Prof. A.K.M. Shafiul Haque was killed in 2014, a murder for which al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent had claimed responsibility. Geology teacher Prof. S. Taher Ahmed was found dead in a septic tank of his house in 2006. His colleague and a Jamaat-backed teacher were among the three were sentenced to death for the murder.

Economics department teacher Prof. Mohammad Yunus was hacked to death, allegedly by Jamaat-e-Islami students, in 2004. Police charged eight members of banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for the murder. Two of them were given death penalty in 2010.

Earlier this month, Nazimuddin Samad, an activist, was killed in Dhaka. Earlier, in 2015, four bloggers were murdered, all for their writing and views against religious bigotry.