Hours after the incident, dwelling minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal instructed reporters {that a} nationwide alert has been issued to recapture them and an investigation launched to determine how the occasion occurred.
The federal government has issued a purple alert in any respect the entry and exit factors of the nation and requested the regulation enforcement companies to beef up their surveillance on the border areas in order that the convicts cannot depart Bangladesh, he stated.
Kamal stated the federal government had issued a directive asking police to not produce demise row convicts in-person in courts and it will likely be probed why the order was not adopted on this case.
“We’ve got launched a large manhunt to recapture them and their helpers,” a police spokesman instructed newsmen on the scene.
Bangladesh Police additionally introduced a reward of Taka 20 lakh (approx $19,428) for tip-offs resulting in the convicts’ recapture.
Police and court docket officers stated Moinul Hasan Shamim alias Samir alias Imran and Abu Siddiq Sohel- who had been amongst 4 operatives of the outlawed terrorist group Ansarullah Bangla Staff (ABT) being escorted to transition jail room following an indictment listening to in a distinct case- escaped the court docket premises with the assistance of some unidentified motorcycle-borne males.
Police stated Shamim and Sohel had been sentenced to demise final yr for killing 42-year-old Bangladesh-born US secular blogger Roy and his writer Faisal Arefin Dipan, who was additionally in his early 40s.
In accordance with police and eyewitnesses, the convicts fled the court docket premises on motorbikes as their accomplices sprayed some chemical on policemen escorting them and created a smoke display screen.
The eyewitnesses stated the spray briefly blinded solely two policemen, suggesting that the convicts within the high-profile homicide instances had been being handled similar to some other odd prisoners.
“The prisoners had been simply handcuffed, their legs weren’t shackled, a ordinary protecting measure for harmful criminals or militants,” a court docket official stated.
CCTV footage aired by TV channels confirmed two bikers sporting helmets carrying the 2 militants by a slender street in entrance of the Dhaka Metropolitan Judges Court docket complicated, whereas a plainclothesman was chasing them.
Roy, an outspoken critic of non secular fundamentalism, was hacked to demise with machetes by ABT militants simply after he left a e-book honest on the Dhaka College on February 26, 2015. His spouse Rafida Ahmed was additionally injured within the assault. The terrorist group additionally hacked to demise his writer Dipan in November the identical yr at his workplace at Dhaka’s Shahbagh space.
Dhaka’s Anti-Terrorism Particular Tribunal court docket sentenced 5 militants to demise within the Roy homicide case, whereas eight Islamists had been sentenced to demise for killing Dipan.
Bangladesh witnessed an alarming rise of militant actions in 2015 when 4 “atheist” bloggers had been murdered with authorities attributing the assaults to homegrown terrorists whereas Islamic State at the moment had claimed duty for 3 assaults.
A 2016 cafe assault was the worst of the militant assaults when 22 folks, together with 17 foreigners, had been killed, sparking a world uproar whereas a court docket subsequently sentenced seven of the eight suspects to demise.
However it prompted the South Asian nation with Muslim majority inhabitants to just about declare a complete warfare in opposition to Islamists participating Military, paramilitary and elite police models that noticed a collection of countrywide raids on militant hideouts and deaths of dozens of extremists.