Ansar Al Islam militant remanded over blogger Niloy murder

Abu Siddik Sohel, an activist of banned Islamist outfit Ansarul Al Islam, was shown arrested and placed on a four-day remand today in a case filed for killing blogger Niladri Chattopadhyay Niloy in August 2015.

Metropolitan Magistrate Md Khurshid Alam passed the order after Inspector of Detective Branch of police Mohammad Bahauddin Faruki, also an investigation officer of the case, submitted a petition for showing Sohel arrested in the case.

Read More: Bangladesh blogger Niladri hacked to death in Dhaka

The IO also sought 10-day remand for questioning Sohel.

Unidentified assailants on August 7 hacked to death secular blogger Niloy inside his house in the capital in broad daylight.

Niloy, 28, was a Gonojagoron Mancha activist, and was the fourth blogger to have been killed in 2015 by suspected Islamist militants.      

On November 6, Sohel gave a confessional statement before a magistrate where he also said that he and seven others took part in the killing of writer and blogger Avijit Roy, a Bangladesh-born US citizen who was hacked to death on Dhaka University campus when he along with his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya was returning from the book fair that day in 2015.

Ansar al Islam, is said to be the Bangladesh chapter of al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).