Just in: The Bangladeshi paper, Daily Star reports: Law enforcers today claimed to have arrested three militants of the  Ansarullah Bangla Team from Dhaka including the mastermind of the Avijit Roy and Ananta Bijoy killings. The detainees were identified as Touhidul Islam, the mastermind and a financier of the banned group, and its active members Sadek Ali and Aminul Mollik.


They were detained last night from Dhanmondi and Nilkhet areas, said Maj Maksudul Alam, deputy director for Rapid Action Battalion's (Rab) legal and media wing. Further details will be disclosed at a press meeting later in the day, said a text message from Rab issued to the media.


Unidentified assailants killed writer and blogger Avijit Roy and badly wounded his wife Rafida Ahmed Banna on the Dhaka University campus on February 26 after the couple came out of the Ekushey Boi Mela (Book Fair). Blogger Ananta Bijoy Das who had been in a state of dread since the brutal murder of Bangladesh-born US writer and blogger Avijit was killed in Sylhet on May 12.


Frustrated with the lack of progress in the Avijit murder case, the 32-year-old had posted a status on Facebook on March 15: "If the killers are not tried, it is understood that they will hone another machete for another strike!"

His trepidation turned out to be all too real as Ananta, known for advocating science and secularism, was viciously hacked to death by a group of masked men in Sylhet city, in a continuation of attacks on free thinkers.

Pic: Slain blogger Avijit Roy.

Also read: Blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh; fourth incident this year