Bachchu, a writer and outspoken proponent of secular principles, owned the Bishaka Prakashani publishing house, which specialised in publishing poetry, and was a former district general secretary of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, was shot to death by unidentified gunmen on a motorcycles as he sat in a tea-shop in his home village Kakaldi in Munshiganj district on Monday evening. He died instantly, according to news reports. Although no group has claimed responsibility, police officials from the counter-terrorism department are investigating the murder as a possible targeted attack by Islamist extremists. Bachchu had previously received threats from extremist groups due to his outspoken support for secularism.

“The shocking news today of Shahzahan Bachchu’s murder is a grim reminder that the severe threat to individuals who express dissident views in Bangladesh remains unacceptably high,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, Director of Free Expression at Risk Programs at PEN America. “We urge authorities to do everything in their power to investigate the killing and bring those responsible to justice, and for the government to state unequivocally that such attacks will not be tolerated. Impunity in such cases only encourages further assaults on free expression.”

Since 2013, religious extremists in Bangladesh have killed more than a dozen secular, atheistic, or non-Muslim writers, bloggers, and activists; in most cases, the government has been slow to respond or even condemn the attacks. In addition, the draconian Information and Communication Technology Act has served only to legitimise these assaults by criminalising the very speech for which these writers face persecution from extremists. Though the government has increased efforts to curb fundamentalist violence, it has done so while concurrently expanded criminal prosecution of blasphemous speech, with dozens of cases filed in the past several years. PEN America has previously condemned the brutal killings of Bangladeshi writers, professors, and activists such as Xulhaz Mannan, Avijit Roy, and Rezaul Karim Siddique, among others, and continues to work on numerous cases of other writers driven into exile by these threats.

This article was first published on PEN America.
 

The post Murder of Secular Publisher and Writer Shahzahan-Bachchu an Attack on Free Expression in Bangladesh appeared first on SabrangIndia.

It is sad that another progressive author-cum-publisher has been assassinated in Bangladesh. According to press reports, Shahzahan Bachchu, 60, an outspoken proponent of secular principles and owner of the publishing house ‘Bishaka Prokashoni’ that specialised in publishing poetry, was gunned down in his ancestral village Kakaldi in Munshiganj district in central Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has turned into a huge killing field for creative personalities who uphold the democratic-secular ideology as authors, poets, dramatists, social activists, artists, bloggers and publishers. Bangladesh which happened to be the most secular society in the subcontinent, though being ruled by a non-Islamist party, is under the complete sway of the criminal Islamists. These human bloodthirsty sadist killers claim that only they know the truth and only they have the franchise of the divine path. The fact is that these criminals are cowards who are scared of a poem, an essay, a drawing, a drama, a poster or a book. Their truth is so vulnerable and weak that it falls down on the ground by any creative expression of dissent.

In last five years, almost 300 progressive authors, poets, artists and social activists have laid down their lives resisting the Islamist juggernaut.

It may be noted that the Hindutva organizations which continuously cry foul of Islam/Muslims and miss no opportunity to denigrate the latter keep mum on these killings. The most likely reason is that these bigots are undertaking such killings in India and do not want to embarrass their Islamist brothers-in-crime. A similarity between killings by the Islamists in Bangladesh and Hindutva terrorist organization in India has been that, all the victims are those who uphold dreams of democratic-secular, progressive and egalitarian society. These are the progressive intellectuals who are in the vanguard of the fight against the religious zealots.   

The author taught at Delhi University. He is a researcher of religious nationalism, persecution of women, Dalits and is a street theatre activist.
 

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