Bangladesh bans extremist group behind blogger murders

Bangladesh yesterday outlawed a group which claims links to Al-Qaeda and is blamed for the machete murders of nearly a dozen atheist bloggers, foreigners and gay rights activists. “The government thinks the activities of Ansar al Islam, a militant group and organization, is detrimental to the country’s peace and order,” the home ministry said in a statement. “The organization is banned in Bangladesh as its activities are considered a threat to public security.”

The group, which claims to be a Bangladesh branch of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, took credit through social media for a spate of gruesome murders that sparked a fierce security crackdown on extremists. In February 2015 the group claimed responsibility for the stabbing murder of Avijit Roy, an American atheist author of Bangladeshi origin, outside a book fair in Dhaka. Last April the group butchered two leading gay rights activists at an apartment in the capital, just weeks after murdering a secular activist.

Police have rejected any suggestion the group is linked to outside extremists, instead describing it as a cell of homegrown extremist outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT). ABT was banned in May 2015 after one of its leaders was arrested and two members were sentenced to death for the murder of an atheist blogger in February 2013. At least seven Islamist militant groups have now been outlawed in Bangladesh. The largest Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami was banned in 2013 after a top court ruled that its charter clashed with the constitution.