Bangladesh bans Islamist group linked to blogger killings

DHAKA: Bangladesh today banned an Islamist militant outfit that is believed to be behind the gruesome hacking deaths of three secular bloggers in recent months that have evoked outrage in the country and across the globe.

The Bangladesh government banned Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) for its militant and anti-state activities with the home ministry publishing a circular in this regard. It is the sixth such organisation to be outlawed for militant activities.

The ban comes at a time when three bloggers and writers have been killed in less than three months.

Earlier this month, machete-wielding masked men hacked to death 33-year-old Ananta Bijoy Das, a secular blogger, in Sylhet city.

Assailants in February had killed 45-year old Avjit Roy, a Bangladeshi-born US national, here while his wife narrowly escaped the attack.

A month after Roy's killing, another blogger Washiqur Rahman was murdered in similar fashion in Dhaka but people in the neighbourhood nabbed two suspected killers from the scene and handed them over to police.

Police has so far arrested several activists of Ansarullah Bangla Team in connection with the murders. Investigators earlier said they suspected that the outfit was closely linked to al-Qaeda.

Das' murder was claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). The terror group made the claim in a post on justpaste.it and Ansarullah Bangla Team tweeted a link to the post.