Responsibility claiming video is from AQIS

A police detective yesterday said the video posted on jihadist forums on Saturday claiming responsibility for the murder of writer-blogger Avijit Roy was of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).

In the video, AQIS leader Asim Umar said his organisation carried out the attacks on Avijit and "other blasphemers" in Bangladesh and Pakistan, AFP had reported citing SITE Intelligence Group, a US website that monitors extremist groups.

"Our investigation using technology and other means suggest the video was of AQIS," Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, and a lead investigator of militancy in Bangladesh, told The Daily Star.

He said they had already found link of Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a militant outfit, in Avijit's killing. ABT follows the ideals, policy and strategy of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Intelligence officials said ABT had long been trying to become an affiliate of global terror organisation al-Qaeda, but Monirul could not confirm whether the outfit had achieved that goal.

Intelligence Wing Director of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) Lt Col Abul Kalam Azad told The Daily Star yesterday that they could not yet verify whether the video was really from al-Qaeda.

He, however, said al-Qaeda might make such a claim if any organisation following its ideologies declared that they had perpetrated the killing as desired by al-Qaeda.

"It is not necessary that al-Qaeda sent its people to Bangladesh for the killing," he said.

Last September, al-Qaeda launched a new branch to "wage jihad" in South Asia to invigorate its waning Islamist extremist movement.

Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri then said the new chapter would take the fight to Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India.

Bangladesh-born US citizen Avijit Roy was hacked to death on Dhaka University campus on February 26, while his wife Rafida Ahmed Banya was badly injured.

Hours after the killing, its responsibility was claimed from a twitter profile named Ansar Bangla-7. Monirul said earlier that ABT and Ansar Bangla-7 was the same organisation.

The official said they had so far identified six to seven ABT operatives involved in the killing of Avijit. He declined to disclose the names.

The little known ABT came to limelight after detectives arrested seven of its members following the February 15, 2013 murder of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider, who confessed to the killing.

In August that year, detectives came to know the detailed organisational structure and sources of finance of ABT from seized documents and interrogation of its some other operatives.