Suspect in US blogger murder case arrested

An Islamist fundamentalist was on Monday arrested for the brutal killing of prominent American blogger- writer and critic of religious extremism Avijit Roy here. Farabi Shafiur Rahman, a self-proclaimed Islamist blogger who had previously threatened Roy multiple times, was arrested by the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) four days after the killing.

Rahman was arrested from a bus stand in Dhaka on Monday, said Commander Mufti Mahmud Khan, director at legal and Media Wing of RAB.

Rahman has confessed that he had threatened to kill the 42-year-old blogger, Khan said.

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 the book fair with his wife on Thursday. “Avijit’s father mentioned Rahman’s name as he had threatened to kill his son several times,” Khan told reporters.