Two sentenced to death for murdering Bangladesh blogger

Bangladeshi court gives death sentence to two students found guilty of killing secular writer Thaba Baba.

 Two students have been sentenced to death for the 2013 murder of an atheist blogger in Bangladesh, the first convictions in a series of killings targeting secular writers.

Faisal bin Nayem and Rezwanul Azad Rana on Thursday were found guilty of murdering Ahmed Rajib Haider, a blogger and activist known by his pen name, Thaba Baba.

Haider was hacked to death by machete-wielding attackers in February 2013 near his home in Dhaka's Mirpur neighbourhood.



One of the two students, who attended one of the country's top universities, is on the run and was sentenced in absentia.

The fast-track court sentenced six other people to different prison terms, including a life sentence 23-year-old Maksudul Hasan.

Five more secular bloggers and a publisher have been brutally this year, triggering protests and claims that the government is not doing enough to protect dissident writers and activists.

Local groups have claimed responsibility for murdering the bloggers, branding them enemies of Islam.