The Gonojagoron Mancha today rejected the verdict handed for February 2013 murder of blogger Rajib Haider and called for protests.

"The self-proclaimed murders of Rajib were not granted the highest punishment," Imran H Sarker, spokesperson of a faction of the Mancha said in reaction.

"We will hold a protest rally today at Shahbagh at 4:00pm to demand the killers' highest punishment," he said in a text message floated to the media.

His comments came minutes after a Dhaka court handed death to two and imprisonment under various terms to six others in connection to the murder.

In its observation, the court blasted the investigators saying "there was negligence" in probe.

This was the first verdict in a series of blogger murders that started with Rajib in 2013 and continued with Oyasiqur Rahman, Ananta Bijoy Das, Avijit Roy and Neil Niloy in 2015.