American-Bangladeshi blogger Avijit Roy and his wife, Rafida Ahmed, were leaving a book fair in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka late in the evening on Feb. 26, 2015 when they were attacked by unidentified men with machetes. Roy died of his injuries shortly after he arrived at a hospital. His wife also sustained serious injuries. According to a local police commissioner, the militant group Ansar Bangla 7 claimed responsibility for the attack. The group reportedly posted a number of messages related to the crime on Twitter following the crime, with one stating that Roy “was a target because of his crime against Islam”. Roy was the founder of the blog “Mukto-Mona” (Free-Mind), which criticised religious intolerance and extremism. His family said he had received a series of threatening emails and social media messages for his writings, and his was one of 84 names of writers that appeared on a list of so-called “atheist bloggers” drawn up by Islamic extremist groups in 2013.
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