Deaths on February 15

Ahmed Rajib Haider, Bangladeshi atheist blogger

Ahmed Rajib Haider (died 15 February 2013) was a Bangladeshi atheist blogger. He used to blog in the blogging communities namely Somewhereinblog.net, Amarblog.com and Nagorikblog.com and used the pseudonym Thaba Baba.On February 15, 2013, after comments he posted online about religious fundamentalism, he was hacked to death by machete-wielding activists from a militant group named Ansarullah Bangla Team. He was the first protester killed during the Shahbag movement.An architect by profession, Haider's blog was among those that ignited the 2013 Shahbag protests. The protesters were seeking trials for the perpetrators of the mass killings during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, a move that was widely seen as aimed at radical Islamists. The protests were opposed by Islamic groups, who organised counter marches under the banner of a newly formed group called Hefajat-e-Islam Bangladesh.On December 30, 2015, after almost three years, two members of the Ansarullah Bangla Team, Md Faisal Bin Nayem and Redwanul Azad Rana, were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Faisal, the court said, was the one who attacked Haider with a meat cleaver. Rana had absconded and was sentenced in absentia. Another member of the outlawed outfit, Maksudul Hasan was also found guilty of murder and given a life sentence. Six other members of ABT, including firebrand leader Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmani, received jail terms of five to ten years.