Four Men Arrested by Bangladeshi Police in Connection with English Professor’s Murder

It was nearly a month ago when 58-year-old Professor Rezaul Karim Siddique was hacked to death with machetes on his way to work at Rajshahi University in Bangladesh. While his colleagues said “he never wrote or spoke against religion in public,” and while his daughter said he wasn’t even an atheist, the thinking was that an Islamist group assumed he wasn’t religious and killed him for it.

There may finally be justice for him.

Four people have been arrested by Bangladeshi police in connection with Siddique’s death:

“Of the four, three were directly involved in the attack while the other was waiting with a motorcycle,” Rajshahi metro police commissioner Md Shamsuddin said at a media briefing.

Maskawath Hasan, alias Sakib alias Abdullah, was arrested in Bogra on Sunday night.

Shamsuddin said three unidentified men were arrested Monday in Rajshahi city after Abdullah named them in a confession in court Monday afternoon.

All four were associated with the banned Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh.

Assuming they really were the guilty parties, this is a powerful step. Now we have to wait to see if they’ll be put away and punished.

The next step is making sure government officials never blame the atheists (or supposed atheists) for criticizing religion. They deserve none of the blame for their own murders.

(Thanks to Scott for the link)