A new extremists' organisation, Ansar Bangla-7, has claimed responsibility for killing of writer and blogger Avijit Roy, police said.

SM Shibly Noman, assistant commissioner of DMP Ramna zone, said the organization has made the claim through a twitter post.

Meanwhile, high officials of Detective Branch of Police visited the spot at 1pm on Friday.

Earlier, detectives and CID officials recovered two blood stained machetes and a shoulder bag from the spot.

Avijit’s family members said his body will be kept at the foot of ‘Aparajeyo Bangla’ at Dhaka University from 10am to 12 noon on Sunday.  Later, the body will be donated to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for research by the medical students .

bdnews24 adds : Thursday’s attack bore a striking similarity to the one on legendary writer Humayun Azad in February 2004.

Azad was also returning home from the Ekushey Book Fair, when he was hacked with machetes by radical militants. He later died in Germany while undergoing treatment.

Militants also hacked blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider to death in a similar attack near his home in Dhaka’s Mirpur in February 2013.

That was barely 10 days after the secular platform Ganajagaran Mancha started its Shahbagh-based agitation, demanding capital punishment for war criminals and a ban on communal parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami.

Islamist radicals had attacked other secular bloggers like Ashraful Alam and Asif Mohiuddin after the Shahbagh agitation polarised opinions in Bangladesh.

Islamist blogger Farabi Shafiur Rahman had allegedly threatened Avijit Roy with death once he returned home.

A screenshot of a Feb 9 post on Farabi’s Facebook timeline is still circulating on the Internet.

In that post , he is seen telling one Mannan Rahi that Avijit Roy cannot be killed now since he is in US, but he will be killed once he is back to Bangladesh. 

Farabi has also been demanding that Rokomari.com, an online shopping portal, stop selling Avijit Roy's books.

Police had arrested Farabi in connection with Rajib Haider’s murder on charges of incitement, but he managed to secure bail.

A twitter account in the name of Ansar Bangla 7 have described the murder of Avijit Roy as an achievement.
 
A series of tweets  since the murder described it  as a punishment for Avijit's "crime against Islam".
 
The first tweet soon after the incident read “Allahu Akbar..A great success today here in #Bangladesh. Target is Down -:- here in #Dhaka.”

The next tweets termed Avijit  as one of their ‘Top Target’ for the last 3-4 years.

“The target was a US citizen, used to live in US for the fear of Muslims. just 5/6 days ago he had come to Dhaka to attend Bookfairl>LoL .Gone”

Another tweet said, “Anti-Islamic blogger US-Bengali citizen Avijit Roy is assassinated in capital #Dhaka due to his crime against #Islam.”

The account also boasts “YES !! We can .. A HeadShot A Day Keeps The Infidel Away.”

It also has a link to Avijit’s facebook page: “Target posted his last facebook status 5 hours ago & killed just 2 hours ago… >>>https://www.facebook.com/Avijit.Roy.MuktoMona …”

Another tweet said, “May be it's Avijit Roy's bloody wife with Husband's Head.#Beheaded. He was a top Target 4 last 3/4 years.” A picture of Bonna trying to pull Avijit up from the pavement was posted along with this tweet.

LY