Three days after the killing of Nazim Uddin Samad, investigators are yet to make any arrests. They are still scrutinising what the secular activist had written on the online platforms.

"We are investigating the murder keeping in mind three possible motives -- Nazim's personal enmity, his Facebook posts and his disputes over land or familial issues," said Inspector (investigation) Samir Chandra Sutradhar of the capital's Sutrapur Police Station.

Nazim did not have any blog and used to write only on Facebook, he said.

Police found a diary of the victim from the rented room in Gendaria where Nazim used to live, added Samir, who is the investigation officer of the case.

"We are yet to find any clue to the murder."

A senior official of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, however, said Nazim was killed most likely for his Facebook posts.

"The nature of the murder and the contents of the victim's Facebook posts strongly suggest that it was the work of the same militant outfit that was behind the previous murders of secular writers," Mahbub Alam, deputy commissioner (east) of the Detective Branch (DB) of the DMP, told The Daily Star.

On Nazim's Facebook page, investigators have found "objectionable comments about Islam and religions" that could have made him a target of the militant group, he added.

The comment from the senior official of the DB, which is conducting a shadow investigation into the incident, came a day after US-based SITE Intelligence Group said Ansar al-Islam -- the Bangladesh wing of al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) -- had claimed responsibility for Nazim's murder.

"Had the victim asked for security from police when he moved to Dhaka from Sylhet, the tragedy could have been averted," commented Mahbub Alam.

Nazim, a law student at Jagannath University, was hacked and shot to death by unidentified assailants on the capital's Hrishikesh Das Lane on Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, the CNN yesterday quoted an al Qaeda statement and said, "Al Qaeda accuses Samad of being 'an enemy of Allah'. It lists three of Samad's posts on Facebook going back to 2013 as examples of his insults against Islam."

Law Minister Anisul Huq was quoted by the CNN as saying that the authorities were "seriously looking into" al Qaeda's connections to this murder. "Unless we are totally sure that this claim … is authentic, I don't think we will be commenting on it."

In the report headlined "Bangladeshi al Qaeda wing declares war on atheists" on its website, the CNN also said freethinker atheists in Bangladesh do not feel safe in their own country.

"Members of the besieged 'free-thinker' atheist, intellectual community in Bangladesh say they do not trust the police because in recent years authorities prosecuted several writers for 'insulting religion' in their published work," it reported.

"I have not gone to the police because police actually tried to arrest me in 2013," one atheist blogger in Bangladesh was quoted by the CNN as saying.

In a Facebook post following Nazim's murder, Rafida Ahmed Banya, widow of Bangladeshi-American secular writer Avijit Roy, criticised the government for its "reluctance" to arrest the killers of freethinkers.

"We have already seen that our so called 'secular' government will not side with us; they will either stay quiet or support the Islamic fundamentalists," she said in the post.

"They have been reluctant to find and try the killers of the previous bloggers and publishers. Starting from the killings of the secular writers, bloggers, activists, publishers, mass rape in our tribal areas, rape in protected army cantonment areas, to arrests of writers under ICT Act 57, the banning of bookstores and putting the writer/publisher in jail by the government - the government's actions are a far cry from its 'secular' constitution."

MORE CONDEMNATION

The UK has joined the international community, including the US, the United Nations and the European Union, in condemning the murder.

In an official statement yesterday, British Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood said, "I am shocked and appalled by the murder of Nazimuddin Samad and strongly condemn this attack on free speech claimed by Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent.

"Violence is never the answer. The right to life of all citizens of Bangladesh must be upheld, as must the right to freedom of expression and open debate.

"I send my condolences to Nazimuddin Samad's family and hope the killers are swiftly brought to justice. The UK continues to support the Government of Bangladesh in tackling terrorism and countering violent extremism in all its forms."