Hard-line Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam (HeI) in a press statement on February 19 demanded release of the convicts for murdering free-thinking blogger and writer Avijit Roy, reports New Age. HeI also demanded to revoke the punishment handed to six youths terming them to be lovers of the Prophet. A Dhaka Anti-Terrorism Special Tribunal on February 16 sentenced five members of the banned extremist outfit Ansar al-Islam also known as Ansarullah Bangla Team, to death and another to life-term imprisonment finding them guilty of murdering free-thinking blogger and writer Avijit Roy on February 26, 2015.