Dhaka: Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) on Monday claimed that arrested Shafiur Rahman Farabi, the prime suspect in the writer and blogger Avijit Roy murder case, was directly involved in the killing.

‘After examining different issues, it appears to us that blogger Farabi was directly involved in the killing of Avijit Roy,’ said Mufti Mahmood Khan, director at legal and media wing of Rab, at a press briefing at the Rab Headquarters few hours after the arrest of Farabi from the city’s Jatrabari area.

Tipped off that Farabi was leaving the city for Chittagong, a team of Rab-10 arrested him from Jatrabari bus stand area around 5:30 am, Mahmood Khan said.

Farabi had been issuing death threats to slain blogger Avijit for his dissident comments against Islam for the last one and half years through his blog named ‘Farabi Blog’, he said.

Besides, Mahmood Khan said, a banned extremist group, ‘Ansarullah Bangla Seven’, also claimed responsibility for the murder of Avijit after two hours of the incident.

Meanwhile, Avijit’s father, Ajoy Roy, claimed that Farabi had been giving death threats to his son for the last one and a half year through facebook, he said.

Examining the facebook page of Farabi, the elite force found that Farabi through his facebook status to one Mannan Rahi, one and half years ago said, ‘Avijit is living in America. It’s not possible to kill him now, but when he will return to Bangladesh he will be killed.’

‘In another facebook status Farabi told one of his friends that he will be arrested by tomorrow or the next day. From these statements it is clear that Farabi was directly involved in Avijit killing,’ said the Rab director.

During primary interrogation, Farabi reportedly said he came to know about Avijit’s anti-Islamic writes-up 4-5 years back and he used to make comments protesting his writes-up.

On February 24, 2013, Farabi was arrested in a case for issuing death threats to an Imam for administering the burial ceremony for blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider who was killed on February 15, 2013.

Later, Farabi secured his bail in the case from the High Court.

Avijit Roy, son of Prof Ajoy Roy and founder of Mukta-Mona blog, was killed and his wife Rafida Afrin Banya injured as unidentified criminals stabbed them near TSC the on Dhaka University (DU) Campus on Thursday night.

Prof Ajay Roy, father of the deceased and a former DU teacher, filed the case against some unnamed people with Shahbagh Police Station on Friday.

Avijit along with his wife, an expatriate couple living in the USA, returned home a few days ahead of the incident as his two books were published on the occasion of the Amar Ekushey Book Fair.