Maj Zia behind blogger killings

Staff Correspondent: Detectives said killings of all free-minded writers, bloggers and publishers have been carried out as per the instruction of fugitive fired army official Major Syed Ziaul Haque.

Maj Zia used to give direction for killing free-minded writers, bloggers and publishers. They were killed as per his direction, detective sources said.

Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) arrested Khairul Islam, a leader of banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), from Kamalapur Railway Station area at 9:00pm on Friday.

In primary interrogation, Khairul, one of the top operatives of ABT, confessed to his involvement of killing Faisal Arefin Dipan, owner of Jagriti Prokashani, and secular blogger Niladri Niloy.

Khairul said in interrogation that the directives of killing bloggers and publishers including the militant attacks carried out across the country came from suspended Army official Major Zia.

He also said that Zia is now in absconding and keeping communication with the organisation regularly.

“I met Zia at a place adjacent to Dhaka on October 26,” Khairul added during the interrogation.

Khairul said that he has been working in the intelligence section of the militant outfit since 2014.

He started to collect information about the Dipan and Niloy since January 2015 and provided those to the outfit’s Askari section (execution section).

As per Zia’s direction, on October 31 last year, Dipan was hacked to death at his office at Aziz Super Market in Dhaka’s Shabagh area on broad daylight. ABT had claimed responsibility of the murder.

Blogger Niloy was also hacked to death on August 7 in 2015 at his residence. On that very day, Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) claimed the murder.

The ex-army official is the head of the military operations of the terror outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) who failed to orchestrate a coup in 2011. Since then, he has been on the run and has a Tk 20 lakh bounty on him.
 
risingbd/DHAKA/Nov 12, 2016/Ahmad Nur/Amirul