Two Islamist militants who were on death row in Bangladesh for the killing of a US blogger critical of fundamentalist Islam have made a dramatic escape on motorbikes while being escorted to a court hearing in the capital, Dhaka.The two men were among those convicted of the murder of Avijit Roy, an American-Bangladeshi writer and blogger who was hacked to death with machetes in the streets of Dhaka in 2015.Roy, who was a prolific writer on secularism and had criticised religious extremism in his widely read blog, had faced death threats before his killing.

His wife was severely injured in the attack.Roy’s publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan was murdered later that year, stabbed in his office by Islamist militants from the same group, and several other bloggers and intellectuals were also targeted during a wave of violence.

Five members of the Islamist outfit were sentenced to death for Roy’s killing and eight were put on death row for Diplan’s killing.The group responsible for the killing, Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), claimed to be inspired by al-Qaida and was banned by the Bangladesh government in 2015.On Sunday, as they were on their way to a court hearing, two of the convicts facing a death sentence managed to make their escape in what appeared to be a brazen and well-coordinated attack.

Several motorcycles accosted their police escort as it reached the Dhaka court complex, and as a toxic substance was sprayed into the eyes of officers, temporarily blinding them, the prisoners were whisked away on the bikes.According to witnesses at the court, although the two men were handcuffed, their legs were not shackled as is usually custom for high-security prisoners.The men who escaped, Moinul Hasan Shamim and Abu Siddiq Sohel, have not been seen since.

The government launched a nationwide police hunt and posted a red alert at its borders to try to locate the escaped prisoners.

Police announced an award of 2m taka (£16,350) for tracing the convicts.Bangladesh’s home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, said police were desperatelytrying to hunt down the men and that an investigation was being carried out into how the prisoners escaped.

CCTV footage aired by local TV channels showed what appeared to the two militants on the back of a motorcycle driven by an unidentified man in a helmet, while a second motorcycle kept up the rear, as they wove their way through the narrow allies of the Dhaka metropolitan judges court complex.The escape of the convicted militants raised fear of a resurgence of groups such as ABT, who along with other outfits claiming to be inspired by al-Qaida and Islamic State were responsible for dozens of deadly attacks between 2013 and 2016, mainly targeting writers, bloggers, intellectuals and activists they viewed as being critical of fundamentalist Islam or sympathetic to religious minorities..

This article first appeared/also appeared in theguardian.com