South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy, The South Asian as well as various other groups in Bangladesh and around the world have condemned the assassination of Professor Muhammad Yunus of the Department of Economics at Rajshahi University in Bangladesh on December 24, 2004.

The Awami League has blamed communal and fundamentalist forces for the death of the professor and held a dawn to dusk hartal to protest the murder.

Prof Mohammad Yunus, 65, of Economics department of Rajshahi University, freedom fighter, also the president of pro-Awami League Bongobondhu Parishad and former RU Registrar, was attacked by the assailants when he came out of his house for morning walk at about 6:20am after offering Fazr prayers. Campus sources said the miscreants stabbed him in the chest, stomach, head and other parts of the body and also struck him with iron rods after gagging him with a towel. The miscreants left the body on the spot, about 200 yards away from his residence.

The manner of the death parallels the assassination of Professor Humayun Azad of Dhaka University in February, 2004. The culprits in both cases, though still unidentified, appear to be "fundamentalist and communalist forces", that have been blamed by the Bangladesh Economic Association for the killing of Prof. Yunus. Both professors were critical of religious extremism, and Jamaat-e-Islami, an extremist group, has been named by several commentators as responsible for their assassination.

Prof Yunus, hailing from Kutubpur village in Badarganj thana of Rangpur, had a sound academic background. He was the classmate of Dr Wazed Miah, husband of Awami League president Sheikh Hasina, during his school life at Rangpur Zila School.

Prof Yunus came under a similar attack in 1994 but survived narrowly.

Six days since the murder, there has been no headway in the investigation in the murder and a vested quarter seemed to be trying to confuse the public regarding the case spreading rumours through leaflets and anonymous phone call. According to Motihar thana sources, important "information" has been disclosed by arrested Salekin, a cadre of Islami Chhatra Shibir, regarding the murder of Professor Yunus but police refused to reveal the information for the sake of investigation.

Meanwhile, a number of computer printed, xeroxed copies of leaflets were sent to different local newspaper offices Tuesday night claiming responsibility of killing of Yunus by Janajuddha unit of Purba Banglar Communist Party (PBCP). But it has been termed a hoax by the informed sources. Almost all teachers and conscious students of the university are of the opinion that such leaflets have been distributed to hide the real killers. They further said, the way Yunus was killed did not match the methods applied by PBCP terrorists. Furthermore, the language used in the leaflets do not match the pattern of PBCP which usually describe their targets as ‘class enemies’, ‘exploiter of poor’ and ‘power monger’. No such languages have been used in the leaflets. Police also did not believe the PBCP activists were behind the murder of Professor Yunus.

At the same time, death threats to a number of teachers of RU demanding toll of various amount over telephone by the name of Bangla Bhai cadres have also been termed as a bid to divert the attention of RU situation to other direction.

It is learnt, police is also looking for some listed terrorists of Binodpur and Kajla areas in connection with the murder of Professor Yunus, but most of those terrorists are absconding.

Meanwhile, Motihar thana police yesterday picked up Rasheduzzman Shovon, the elder son of slain Mohammad Yunus and interrogated him for a long time.

Rasheduzzaman, while talking to journalists said, he wanted the real killers of his father be caught and tried. He also condemned the bid by some quarters to give a political colour to his father’s murder.

Since its return to democracy in 1991 after 15 years of military rule Bangladesh has been ravaged by attacks on academics and journalists. Humayun Kabir, editor of the Bangla-language daily Janmabhumi was killed with a bomb in Khulna city on June 2004, for exposing organized crime, which he did with greater intensity after his fellow journalist Manik Shaha was killed in the same way for his investigative reports on crime. These were two of the six murders of journalists in Khulna since 2000. Many journalists and academics have been beaten up. Scores of journalists and academics in Bangladesh have received death threats for being "enemies of Islam." Prof. Muntasir Mamun, well known for writing against Islamic fundamentalism has received such a threat. Prof. Munshi Mojibul Haque of Islamic History department at Rajshahi University has received a death threat from an associate of an Islamic extremist organization unless he gave money to buy an AK 47 rifle. Several professors at Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Jahangir Nagar, and Shah Jalal universities have been threatened by known and obscure Islamist groups.

Bangladesh is recognized as the most dangerous place for a journalist to work in. It is also the most dangerous place for academics. This situation, fundamentally hostile to democracy, has been created by the collusion of political parties, criminal interests, and religious extremism. It has been fostered by a culture of impunity for politically motivated violence, the refusal by the state to pursue justice and punish these heinous crimes. We utterly condemn the Bangladesh government's inaction in the pursuit of justice and its failure to defend the freedom of academics and journalists. We demand that the Bangladeshi people be enabled to live in peace and security and to determine their political future through the free exchange of ideas and the rule of law.