Tavella killing: Matin on 8-day remand

MA Matin was placed on an eight-day remand in connection with the killing of Italian national Cesare Tavella. In the photo, police inspect the crime scene where Tavella was murdered. Photo: Star/ Enam Ul Haque

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A Dhaka court today placed MA Matin on an eight-day remand in connection with the killing of Italian national Cesare Tavella.
Matin is younger brother of MA Quayum, Dhaka city BNP joint convener and a former BNP-backed ward commissioner.
Metropolitan Magistrate Shahriar Mahmud Adnan passed the order after Zehad Hossain, inspector of Detective Branch of police and also the investigation officer of the case, produced Matin before it with a 10-day remand prayer.
On the other hand, defence lawyer submitted a petition seeking bail his along with cancellation of the remand prayer, saying that their client’s name was not including in First Information Report.
The defence also said that his client was not arrested from Benapole last night. Rather, he was picked up 13 days ago, they added.
According to police, Matin was arrested at Benapole border in Jessore while he was attempting to leave the country yesterday.
Matin's name came up in the confessional statement given by Minhajul Arefin Russell alias Bhagne Russell, one of the four suspects already in custody in connection with the murder, DMP sources said.
However, Matin's family members claimed that plainclothes men identifying themselves as detectives picked up Matin from in front of his Madhya Badda home on October 20 evening. 
Tavella, 50, was shot dead by armed criminals in the capital's Gulshan diplomatic zone on September 28. He was working as a project manager of a Netherlands-based NGO.
The other three arrested in this connection are Tamjid Ahmed Rubel, Sakhawat Hossain Sharif, and Russell Chowdhury. Just like Bhagne Russell, they are all from Badda.
After their arrest, DMP Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia had said, “We have information about the so-called Boro Bhai [big brother]. After his arrest, it will be known who are backing him.”
Detective sources had then claimed that the “big brother” is a mid or lower-mid level leader of the BNP.
MA Quayum late last month told The Daily Star, “After detectives picked up my younger brother [MA Matin], and the home minister's statement that a big brother hired and financed hitmen to kill the Italian citizen, I feared that the government was going to implicate me in the matter to malign my image and that of the BNP.”
Quayum alleged that the government wanted to make him the “scapegoat” by branding him the “Boro Bhai”.
Just a few hours after his talks with this paper, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told The Daily Star and a number of other media outlets that Quayum was that big brother.

UN condemns attacks on bloggers, publishers

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. Photo taken from UN Human Rights website.

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The UN today strongly condemned the continuing violent attacks against bloggers and publishers in Bangladesh and urged the government to take urgent measures to protect the ones being threatened by extremists.
“At least five Bangladeshi writers and publishers as well as two foreign aid workers have been violently murdered this year in Dhaka and many more are attacked and threatened, apparently by groups that believes they have the right to impose their views on others through wanton violence,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said.
“There is an urgent need for a concerted response to prevent more killings by promptly bringing the perpetrators to justice. The State must not allow extremist groups to take matters into their own hands.” the High Commissioner said, according to a statement issued from UN in Geneva.
Last Saturday, publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan was hacked to death in his office in Dhaka while in a separate incident on the same day, another publisher and two other bloggers were attacked.
Dipan had published the work of the prominent blogger, Avjit Roy, who was hacked to death in February this year. Three other bloggers have been murdered this year, all of whom had written about sensitive social, political and religious issues.
Many others have received threats on social media and have come up on hit-lists published on Facebook. Some of the people who have been threatened have gone into hiding or fled the country.
“I urge political and religious leaders to consistently and unequivocally condemn this spate of vicious killings and threats against writers and publishers and anyone else who may be targeted by these takfiri groups,” Zeid said.
Zeid stressed that the State must ensure that journalists, civil society actors and human rights defenders are able to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and opinion without fear for their safety.
“When people have been explicitly threatened with violence or murder, it is the duty of the State to provide them with effective protection,” the High Commissioner said.

IS claims responsibility for Ashulia checkpost attack: SITE

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Islamic State (IS) has claimed the responsibility for the attack at a police checkpost at Ashulia on the outskirts of Dhaka yesterday that left a police constable dead, US-based SITE Intelligence group says.
“The Islamic State (IS) claimed an attack on a police checkpoint in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka,” SITE Intelligence group reported hours into the brutal attack that also left another constable injured critically on Dhaka-Tangail highway.
Meanwhile, police yesterday said they didn't have any clue to the motive behind the attack.
The incident took place hardly two weeks after an assistant sub-inspector of Darus Salam Police Station was stabbed to death by a youth at a checkpoint in the capital's Gabtoli.
The claim however is reported only by SITE Intelligence Group.
Rita Katz, director of SITE Intelligence Group, posted in her official twitter account and the group's web page that IS claimed responsibility for the September 28 murder of Tavella, the October 3 killing of Japanese citizen Kunio Hoshi and bomb attack at Shia headquarters on October 24.
Bur the group and its director never mentioned exactly where and how IS made the claims.
For the first time since the first reporting on IS claims, SITE Intelligence offered some explanation on October 27 when it said the claims had been authenticated and found credible by SITE's rigorous verification process.
“...all of the aforementioned claims were also featured in numerous IS media channels, including Telegram Messenger and the group’s publically available al-Bayan reports. Citizens and government officials in Bangladesh can even read the claims in their own language on a pro-ISIS Bengali blog,” the group said in a press release where it said it stood by its reports on the IS claims.
However, investigators in Bangladesh said they are yet to ascertain the authenticity of the IS claims. The government maintains that there was no organisational presence of the Middle East-based terror outfit in the country.
Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal repeatedly said that there were no presence of the IS in Bangladesh.
"Our intelligence agencies are sure that those [the claims] were not uploaded on the IS' official website, but from somewhere else," he told reporters on October 27. Those who claim to be IS members in Bangladesh might be from militant outfits Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, al-Qaeda and the Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh.
On October 27, a US State Department spokesperson said the US was not certain about the presence of Islamic State in Bangladesh.