Bangladesh police on Wednesday handed over evidence related to the brutal killing of American blogger-writer Avijit Roy to FBI. “We have handed the two machetes believed to be used in the murder, a bag, the blood sample and several other evidence over to FBI,” police spokesman Monirul Islam said.
He said Bangladesh police had obtained the required court permission for getting the evidence examined in the FBI laboratory ahead of handing over the material to the US. Police had seized two machetes, wrapped in newspapers, and the bag containing some clothes and painkiller pills, just 50 yards away from the crime scene after the February 26 hacking of Roy.
The FBI joined hands in the investigation after Bangladesh accepted a US offer to assist in the probe. Agents of the US agency have inspected the murder site at the premier Dhaka University campus and talked to slain blogger’s father, noted physicist Professor Ajay Roy.
45-year-old Roy, known for his critique of religious extremism, was hacked to death in the university area by machete-wielding assailants, who attacked the Bangladeshi-origin writer as he was returning from a book fair with his wife last month.