Two men sentenced to death for murdering a prominent US-Bangladeshi blogger for his highly critical views on religious extremism escaped from a crowded courtroom in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Sunday.
The two escaped death-row inmates had been convicted for the murder of Avijit Roy, a popular American-Bangladeshi blogger who was hacked to death in 2015 with machetes on the streets of Dhaka.
On February 26, 2015, the victim, Roy, and his wife Rafida Ahmed were attacked by militants with a machete when they left a book fair. Roy was hacked to death while his wife suffered head injuries. Roy, a prolific writer on matters of secularism and criticized religious extremists in his widely read blog, was in constant danger from Islamist militant groups due to his critical blog. He often received death threats before his murder.
Roy’s blog publisher, Arefin Dipan, was also stabbed and killed in his office later that year by Islamist militants from the same group. Several other intellectuals and bloggers were targeted during the wave of violence.
After the convicts’ escape, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, the Bangladesh Minister of Home Affairs, told reporters that the police had launched a nationwide investigation to determine how the incident occurred, issuing an alert to find the convicts and the culprits who helped them get away.
“We have blocked all entry and exit points and beefed-up security at all border points to help net the convicts,” he added.
Bangladesh Police announced they would give a reward of Taka 20 lakh, about $19,428, to anyone who gave information leading to their arrest of the fugitives.
According to Home Minister Kamal, the government had given a directive to police officers, barring them from bringing death row convicts in person to all courts. Investigators will probe why the police did not follow that directive in the case of the escapees.
On Sunday, the two men who escaped were among four operatives of the Ansarullah Bangla Team, an al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist group, taken to a courtroom following their indictment hearing on a separate case. They escaped with the help of other unidentified men on motorcycles.
Eyewitnesses and police said that several motorcycles surrounded the police escort as it approached the court building, and men on motorbikes sprayed an unknown substance on police officers causing them to be blind for a few seconds, effectively creating a smoke screen. The two convicts quickly got onto the motorcycles and escaped.
A court official said the convicts were only handcuffed, and their legs were not shackled, which is a standard security measure when transporting dangerous criminals.
Several local TV channels aired footage of two bikers carrying the escapees through a narrow pathway in front of the Dhaka Court Complex while a policeman was chasing them.
In 2015, Bangladesh saw an alarming rise in militant activities and attacks on bloggers, with four secular bloggers being murdered that year. Most terrorist attacks were claimed by militant groups aligned with Al-Qaeda or ISIS.
