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Dhaka, Nov. 20 (PTI) — Two Islamist militants sentenced to death for killing prominent Bangladeshi-American secular blogger Avijit Roy and his publisher were rescued from a crowded road with the help of unidentified cyclists on Sunday. The courthouse’s dramatic escape used some chemicals on police and created a smoke screen before driving the criminals away.
Hours after the incident, Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told reporters that a nationwide alert had been issued to recapture them and an investigation was launched to determine how the incident occurred.
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“We have launched a massive manhunt to recapture them and their helpers,” a police spokesman told reporters at the scene.
He said Moinul Hasan Shamim alias Samir alias Imran and Abu Siddiq Sohel – both agents of the illegal terrorist organization Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) – were brought before the court for a prosecution hearing in another case when some unidentified Motorbikes – Porters took them away as they were escorted to transition cells.
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Police said the two ABT agents were sentenced to death last year for killing Roy, a 42-year-old Bangladeshi-born American secular blogger, and his publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan.
The criminals fled the courtroom on motorcycles as their accomplices sprayed chemicals and created a smoke screen on officers escorting them, according to police and witnesses.
Witnesses said the spray only temporarily blinded two officers, suggesting that the criminals in the high-profile murder were treated like other ordinary prisoners.
“The prisoners were only handcuffed, their legs were not shackled, which is the usual protection for dangerous criminals or militants,” a court official said.
CCTV footage broadcast by a television channel showed two helmeted cyclists carrying the two militants across a narrow road in front of the Dhaka Metropolitan Judges’ Court building, while a man in plain clothes was chasing them.
On February 26, 2015, Roy was hacked to death with a machete by ABT militants just after leaving the book fair at the University of Dhaka. Terrorist groups also hacked him to death at the offices of his publisher Dipan in Dhaka’s Shahbagh district in November of the same year.
The special anti-terrorism court in Dhaka sentenced five militants to death in the Roe murder case, while eight Islamists were sentenced to death for killing Dipan.
Bangladesh witnessed an alarming rise in armed activity in 2015, when four “atheist” bloggers were murdered and authorities blamed homegrown terrorists for the attacks, while Islamic State claimed responsibility for three attacks at the time.
A 2016 cafe attack, the deadliest of the militants’ attacks, killed 22 people, including 17 foreigners, sparking global uproar and a court subsequently sentenced seven of the eight suspects to death.
But it prompted the Muslim-majority South Asian nation to all but declare an all-out war against Islam, with the army, paramilitary and elite police force conducting a series of raids on militant hideouts across the country that left dozens dead. Extremists die.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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