Bangladesh machete murder suspect killed in 'shootout'

By Mainul Islam Khan

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – A suspect in the high-profile killing of an atheist blogger was shot dead in an alleged shootout with Bangladeshi police, according to Police Deputy Commissioner Masudur Rahman.

The suspect, named only as "Sharif", had a 500,000 Bangladeshi Taka ($6,300) reward on his head for his alleged role in killing Bangladeshi-American blogger Avijit Roy in February 2015, reported local website bdnews24.com.

The incident followed another purported shootout on Saturday that killed Golam Faizullah Fahim, 18, who had been in custody suspected of attacking a Hindu teacher in Bangladesh’s Madaripur district near the capital Dhaka.

Fahim was caught by locals while fleeing after a machete attack on Tuesday afternoon that left Ripon Chakroborty, 40, seriously injured.

The "shootouts" follow the arrests of around 200 militants in a week-long crackdown on a two-year wave of machete murders of 49 Bangladeshi secular bloggers, activists and religious minorities.

Police claim to have arrested more than 11,000 other people during the crackdown, raising questions about how many of those people were linked to the murders.

According to Bangladeshi human rights group Odhikar, 148 people were killed in 2015 in alleged shootouts with security forces, though many of them had already been detained by police, leading to claims the deaths were extra-judicial killings.