Babu was attacked around 9:45am Monday in Tejgaon industrial area, Tejgaon Zone’s Deputy Police Commissioner Biplob Kumar Sarkar told bdnews24.com.
He said immediately after the incident, local residents caught two madrasa students and handed them over to police.
Three blood-stained meat cleavers were also recovered from the scene of the murder.
This time, too, the assailants mainly targeted Babu’s head and neck like in the previous attacks on Professor Humayun Azad, blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider, AKM Shafiul Islam and writer-blogger Avijit Roy.
DC Sarkar said Rahman used to stay at a mess in Begunbarhi of Tejgaon.
He was attacked by three assailants with sharp weapons on the street near the mess.
Rahman was declared dead after being taken to the the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital with fatal injuries.
Police identified the victim from the voter identity card found on him and the statements of the two madrasa students.
He said immediately after the incident, local residents caught two madrasa students and handed them over to police.
Three blood-stained meat cleavers were also recovered from the scene of the murder.
This time, too, the assailants mainly targeted Babu’s head and neck like in the previous attacks on Professor Humayun Azad, blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider, AKM Shafiul Islam and writer-blogger Avijit Roy.
DC Sarkar said Rahman used to stay at a mess in Begunbarhi of Tejgaon.
He was attacked by three assailants with sharp weapons on the street near the mess.
Rahman was declared dead after being taken to the the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital with fatal injuries.
Police identified the victim from the voter identity card found on him and the statements of the two madrasa students.
They told police that there was another accomplice named Abu Taher.
DC Sarkar said during preliminary interrogations, the two claimed that Rahman was killed for his writings on religious issues.
It was being investigated whether they were linked to any organisation or party, he told reporters.
According to the victim’s family, 27-year old Babu was working at a travel agency called Fareast Aviation at Motijheel as a trainer after completing his studies from Tejgaon College.
Son of Tipu Sultan, Rahman hailed from Hajipur village in Lakshmipur district’s Ramganj.
He was mainly active on the Facebook where he used to write on religion, science and against communalism.
Protesting against the killing of Avijit Roy, he wrote on the banner of his Facebook page: ‘I am Avijit. Words cannot be killed’.
After interrogating ‘Zikrullah’ and ‘Ariful’, police came to know that the former had come to Dhaka from Hathajari on Sunday to execute the murder. They drew up the entire murder plan on Sunday.
“In the morning when Babu stepped out of his home, three assailants attacked him from behind. While they were trying to flee after the attack, police arrested the two with the help of locals.”
Three bloodstained cleavers used in the crime was found near the body. There were marks of severe injuries on Rahman’s chin, throat and neck.
At the time of the incident there were not many people on the street.
An eyewitness, Jiauddin, said after hearing the scream of a woman, he and a few others, who were there at the Khokan General Stores, owned by his elder brother, rushed out to find a person was lying on a pool of blood and a woman was screaming seeing the gruesome scene.
He said they also saw three youths fleeing towards the main street.
Police arrest two for suspected involvement to the attack on online activist Oyasiqur Rahman Babu. Photo: asif mahmud ove/ bdnews24.com
Only a month back, on Feb 26, writer-blogger Avijit Roy was killed on the Dhaka University campus in a similar manner.
His wife and fellow blogger Rafida Ahmed Bonya was also seriously injured in the attack.
Apart from arresting Farabi Shafiur Rahman, who had earlier threatened to kill Avijit on social media, police could not make any significant headway to unravel the murder mystery.
In February 2013, blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider was hacked to death in front of his home in capital’s Mirpur. Fundamentalist groups were found to be involved in that murder too.