There is something deeply agonizing about reading the words of a man pleading for help, a couple of days after his brutal murder. “I am asking for your help by this letter” he writes in his concluding paragraph, and while he makes an effort to sound calm, courteous and composed, the desperation behind the restrained words somehow manages to seep through. As I sit here reading an email attachment written by Ananta Bijoy Das, the most recent victim of the string of murders of secular humanist activists and writers that have gripped Bangladesh, I cannot help but feel a profound sense of loss. All the “what ifs” and “if onlys”, which are becoming all too familiar after three murders under near-identical circumstances in this year alone, are revisited. What makes the affliction this time around almost unbearable is that Ananta Bijoy Das knew exactly what his fate had in store, and he was scared. “Protect myself from the grasp of religious fanatics and work on mitigating the bad affects that they create”; these were the goals with which he sought asylum in Europe. Alas, his calls for help fell on deaf ears.

Ananta Bijoy Das described himself as a freelance writer. He ran an organization in Sylhet, which he introduced as the “Science & Rationalist Council” (SRC), which, as the name suggests, was committed to promoting rationalism and scientific curiosity as a means for helping people escape the trance of religious superstitions. Like his fellow freethinker Avijit Roy, also a victim of the recent trend of violence against atheist writers in Bangladesh, he was passionate about science and critical thinking, and his organization arranged debates among school children, where they were encouraged to ponder about various issues and come up with solutions for problems. No doubt he was acutely aware of the impressionable nature of young minds, and the necessity to offer them such challenges in order to develop their critical thinking faculties. This plasticity of children’s perceptions is also known to the Islamists, and in the plethora of madrassas that have sprung up all over the country, it is exploited in order to indoctrinate the children with an extremist interpretation of Islam, many of whom grow up to become the disposable henchmen used at the sharp end of these attacks.

What Ananta Das was best known for, and perhaps the reason fundamentalist Muslims picked up his scent in the first place, was a magazine, which his organization put together and published, called “Jukti”, which translates to “Reason”. The first issue of Jukti was published in 2007 and featured, translated to Bengali of course, a chapter titled “What is a Freethinker?” from the well known book “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist” written by the evangelical preacher turned atheist, Dan Barker. It was a sign of things to come, and over the years, Jukti featured many such thought provoking writings, many of which were translated from English with permission, such as an interview with Dr. Sean B. Carrol, which appeared in the 2009 issue of Discovery, and a piece titled “Turtles All the Way Down: The Atlas of Creation” written by Matt Cartmill, which is a review of the book “Atlas of Creation” by Harun Yahya, to name a few. Harun Yahya, a Turkish Islamic Creationist author, is popular with the “Islamic Foundation”, the largest Islamic Organization in Bangladesh, which is involved in the publication of this and many other books written by him, and their distribution to all levels of the education system throughout Bangladesh. Mr. Das, who was the editor of Jukti, also wrote an article whose Bangla title translates to “Harun Yahya: All That Glitters is Not gold”, in which he exposed the holes in the creationist’s arguments. In addition, many articles in Jukti provided critical evaluations of the views of other prominent promoters of Islam, such as the extremely popular Indian cleric, Zakir Naik, who was recently awarded by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia for his “services to Islam”. Other articles featured in Jukti leave no room for doubt about Mr. Das’s keen enthusiasm for science, particularly the Darwinian theory of evolution, which is in stark contrast to the creationism that Islam, and many other religions teach. Needless to say, such articles proved to be highly controversial in our country, where an overwhelming majority follows the Sunni sect of Islam. Jukti and the articles it featured turned out to be highly popular among Bangladeshis nonetheless, not just in the published form, but over the country’s blogosphere as well.

Ananta Das wrote several books, starting with “Parthiba”, which translates to “Nothing is divine”, where he talks about the problems that fundamentalism of both Islam and Hinduism are creating for the Indian subcontinent. But contrary to what most people in Bangladesh believe, Mr. Das’s works did not just address the issue of religious extremism. His second book was a tribute to Charles Darwin, and was published on the 200th anniversary of his birthday, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of “On the Origin of Species”. The third book was about the history of science of the Soviet Union, titled “Science and Revolution in Soviet Union: The Lysenko Chapter”. While he was working on this unique book, on a topic with scarce references, Mr. Das engaged in correspondence with several university professors from Europe and North America. The works mentioned here is a mere fraction of Aanata Bijoy Das’s entire bibliography. He wrote more than four books and was a very versatile writer with vast array of knowledge. He also wrote frequently on Avijit Roy’s Mukto-Mona website and had a Facebook community page, also called “Jukti”, which served as the official page for his magazine.  

It is no surprise that the Swedish PEN invited Mr. Das to Stockholm to speak about the deteriorating situation in Bangladesh for journalists and writers, after the murders of Avijit Roy and another blogger, Washiqur Rahman. He was invited to a meeting, which was scheduled to take place on the 3rd of May, in conjunction with the commemoration of World Press Freedom Day. But the Swedish embassy in Dhaka refused to grant him a visa, which was required for the visit, and would have enabled him to stay in Sweden for two weeks upon his arrival as a guest of the Swedish PEN. He was killed just over a week after the day the meeting was supposed to be held. The aforementioned “what ifs” and “if onlys” are revisited once more. What if his application for a visa was not rejected? Would he still be here with us today? Mr. Das, encouraged by the Swedish PEN, appealed the decision of the embassy to refuse him entry into Sweden. If only a decision about his appeal was reached sooner! Perhaps the world would have had the chance to hear about the plight of the freethinkers in Bangladesh in Mr. Das’s own words, rather than reading about it after his death. What makes the affliction this time around almost unbearable is that Ananta Bijoy Das knew that his name was among the 84 names of bloggers, branded as “anti-Islamic atheists” and tagged for execution by extremist Muslim groups such as Hefazothe Islam. When the machete struck, he knew exactly what was happening!

In one of his last blogs, Mr. Das strongly criticized the Bangladeshi police’s inaction when Avijit Roy and his wife, Ms. Rafida Ahmed, who is also a secular blogger, were being attacked in the open near a crowded book fair, despite heavy police presence nearby. He strongly condemned the police’s dereliction of duty and lack of urgency in bringing the perpetrators of these recent attacks to justice. It is becoming clear now, after three murders, that the ruling Awami League party of Bangladesh is not willing to safeguard free speech and demand accountability for the extremist groups responsible for conceiving these attacks, possibly due to fear of reprisal from the conservative Muslims and losing a fringe voter base. The party has chosen to abandon its responsibility as the ruler of a secular country, to protect all of its citizens regardless of their views on religion, and has chosen instead to ingratiate itself to the Islamists who demand capital punishment for blasphemy.

With three people killed in less than three months, and with the deaths being openly celebrated by the fanatical Islamists and their supporters on social media, along with promises of “more to come”, it is evident that the problem will not resolve itself. The phenomenon is reminiscent of a serial killer with a cooling off period of roughly one month. A serial killer with many faces, that can strike anywhere in broad daylight. Motivated by a dangerous ideology, these radicalized individuals, who have been brainwashed their entire lives, kill fearlessly, believing that they are doing so in the name of their god, Allah. With the list of targeted bloggers still having many names on it that remain to be crossed off, and the police unwilling to try harder to come up with conclusive leads or to provide the fragile, defenceless bloggers with protection, what does the future hold for intellectual freedom in our fledgling nation? One thing is for certain. The writing will, as it always has, continue.