DHAKA, Bangladesh — Two males on demise row in Bangladesh for the high-profile killings of a secular creator and his writer escaped Sunday whereas en path to a listening to within the capital, the authorities mentioned.
Males on bikes attacked law enforcement officials escorting the prisoners to court docket in Dhaka by spraying one thing within the officers’ faces earlier than whisking the convicts away, the police mentioned.
The prisoners had been amongst these convicted within the murders of the Bangladeshi-American author, Avijit Roy, in 2015 and of his writer, Faisal Arefin Dipan, later that 12 months. The killings represented an unsettling rise in extremist violence in Bangladesh. One other of Mr. Roy’s publishers and several other intellectuals and bloggers vital of fundamentalist Islam had been additionally killed that 12 months.
The violence despatched a chilling message to secular writers and publishers in Bangladesh, the place a bitter cultural battle has raged over whether or not the nation is, or ought to be, a Muslim state. The group that claimed duty for Mr. Roy’s and Mr. Dipan’s killings — Ansarullah Bangla Staff, or Helpers of Allah in Bangladesh — was banned in Might 2015.
The demise sentences doled out final 12 months for Mr. Dipan’s homicide had been meant to ship a sign condemning religiously motivated violence and militancy. However after the brazen abduction of the prisoners — Moinul Hasan Shamim and Abu Siddiq Sohel — in Dhaka on Sunday, some commentators in Bangladeshi information media puzzled a few resurgence.
A snippet of CCTV footage that was broadcast on nationwide tv Sunday confirmed three folks on one motorbike adopted by a single rider on one other motorbike fleeing from the street the place the prisoners had been intercepted.
Bangladesh’s residence minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, mentioned that the boys who carried off the prisoners had been regarded as supporters of Ansarullah Bangla Staff.
The federal government issued a purple alert at its borders and provided a reward of 1 million Bangladesh taka — about $9,700 and several other instances the typical annual earnings in Bangladesh — for info resulting in the fugitive prisoners’ seize.
Mr. Khan mentioned that the police had been trying to find the boys “desperately,” and that an inner investigation had been opened to find out whether or not state negligence contributed to their escape.
Jyotirmoy Barua, a lawyer, mentioned the protocols for transferring prisoners won’t have been adopted correctly.
“There’s a particular provision for bringing the accused who’ve been sentenced to most punishment within the court docket,” he mentioned. “They should be delivered to the court docket in a extremely safe method. That was not completed on this case.”
Harun Or Rashid, the chief of the detective department of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, mentioned that 4 unidentified males turned up on the court docket premises because the police arrived with the prisoners.
“The unidentified males used some type of spray on the faces of police,” Mr. Rashid mentioned. “We now have put in verify posts at essential factors to catch them.”
Abul Kashem Fazlul Haq, Mr. Dipan’s father, mentioned the episode was “very scary.”
Mr. Dipan was stabbed to demise with machetes in October 2015 in his workplace in Dhaka. Earlier that 12 months, Mr. Roy, a Bangladeshi-American identified for writings vital of spiritual extremism, was stabbed to demise on his means residence from a e-book honest in Dhaka. Earlier than he was killed, Mr. Roy had confronted demise threats from Islamic militant teams.