Ali, a correspondent for the Khulna-based, Bengali-language daily Anirban,
died shortly before midnight on April 21, while undergoing treatment at
Khulna Medical College Hospital for injuries sustained in an attack
days earlier. Late on the night of April 17, masked men kidnapped Ali
from his home in the village of Shovna, according to local press
reports. The assailants stabbed him, beat him severely, and broke his
hands and legs before abandoning him on the outskirts of his village,
according to police.
Ali was found unconscious and taken to the hospital in Khulna, a major
city in southwestern Bangladesh. Doctors said he died due to major
brain damage and profuse bleeding.
Police suggested that members of the outlawed Biplobi Communist Party
may have killed Ali because of a dispute over ownership of a shrimp
farm. However, journalists in Khulna said that the investigation lacked
credibility because Ali’s reporting had uncovered links between police
and smuggling rings in the region. CPJ sources said that Ali, who
worked as the Dumuria subdistrict correspondent for Anirban,
was killed because “he knew too much” about the workings of local
criminal syndicates and the complicity of some local authorities in
their activities.