'Dad taught me to be informed and bold' says slain blogger's kin
Date
2/27/2016 11:10:23 PM
(MENAFN- Asia Times) Avijit Roy pictured with wife Rafida Ahmed Banya and step-daughter Trisha Ahmed
In a moving piece that Trisha Ahmed a second-year student at Johns Hopkins University wrote for CNN she recounts the father she remembers and the brutal attack she is trying to forget.
“Though my dad worked as a computer programmer during the day he was a writer when he came home. His books were about the science behind homosexuality and the virus of religious extremism. His goal was to incorporate more secular discussion into mainstream Bangladesh” she wrote.
“He and my mom started dating when I was six years old. In the 12 years that followed he became my friend my hero my most trusted confidant. Not once did he tell me to simmer down or be more polite he taught me to be informed bold and unafraid” she wrote.
Roy 43 was hacked to death by radical Islamists on February 26 in 2015in Dhaka in which Ahmed’s mother Rafida Ahmed also suffered head wounds and lost her left thumb.
On May 3 the al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent claimed responsibility for the attack.
Trisha recalled her parents visiting her at the university before flying to Dhaka.
Thirteen days later she received messages informing that her father was dead and her mother was in the ICU in Bangladesh.
That afternoon she posted on Facebook: “My dad was a prominent Bengali writer most famous for his books about science and atheism. Fifteenhours ago Islamic fundamentalists stabbed my dad to death. My mom was severely wounded from the attack and is still in the hospital.”
Recalling her struggle to fight with the memories of her father and his brutal murder Trisha said: “To say that I’m furious or heartbroken would be an understatement. But as [screwed] up as the world is there’s never a reason to stop fighting to make it better. I’ll carry the lessons he taught me and the love he gave me forever.”