BANGLADESH: COURTS IN SIX DISTRICTS SENTENCE 29 TO DEATH IN SEVEN SEPARATE MURDER CASES

November 30, 2015: Altogether twenty-nine people were sentenced to death in seven separate murder cases in six districts in Bangladesh.
Judicial courts handed down death sentences to 24 of the 29 in Chittagong, Sylhet, Gazipur, Narayanganj and Kushtia.
Meanwhile, the High Court has upheld the death sentences of five in a case relating to the murder of a businessman in Dhaka’s Postogola.
In Gazipur, Additional District and Sessions Judge Md Fazle Elahi Bhuiyan has sentenced 11 people to death for the murder of Jalal Uddin Sarkar, former president of the Kapasia Upazila unit of the Awami Juba League.
Sarkar was hacked to death in public in the Upazila’s Balkhela Bazar area in 2003.
Six of the 11 convicted were present in court during the delivery of the verdict.
They are Farhad Sarkar, Belayet Hossain Biltu, Faruk Hossain, Ataur Rahman, Jaynal Abedin and Ahmed Ali.
The five others still absconding are Joj Mia, Al Amin, Mahbubur Rahman, Ahim Fakir and Jewel.
All the accused are linked to the local BNP unit and its affiliated organisations.
The First Special Tribunal in Narayanganj has found four persons guilty of murdering schoolboy Rakibul Hasan Emon.
In his verdict on the case, judge Miaji Mohammad Shahidul Islam sentenced the four to death.
Emon’s body was recovered from a ditch near his home on Mar 6, 2014 in Kamartala area of Bandar Upazila, 35 days after he had been abducted.
The kidnappers of the schoolboy had demanded Tk 1 million from his family as ransom.
At the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal, judge KM Rasheduzzaman Raza handed down the death sentence on a person for the rape and murder of ninth-grader Sonya Akter Sajeda.
Convict Delwar Hossain was present in court when the verdict was pronounced.
Investigations have revealed that on Aug 29, 2008, Hossain abducted the girl while she was on her way to school. He took her to a hotel and raped her. She was then strangled to death.
Chittagong Divisional Public Security Tribunal Judge Syeda Hosne Ara has sentenced four men to death and two others to life in prison for the murder of an auto-rickshaw driver in Boalkhali Upazila in 2008.
Those given capital punishment are Nurul Alam, Abul Kalam, Md Kausar and Md Rubel. The two who have been condemned to life imprisonment are Ariful Islam and SM Noimuddin.
Only Kausar and Noimuddin are behind bars. The four others are still absconding.
The case records reveal that on May 3, 2008, the accused hired the auto-rickshaw from the port city’s Bahaddarhat to go to Anwara.
They murdered Yusuf, the driver of the auto-rickshaw, and made off with the three-wheeler. Yusuf's body was dumped on a road in West Gomdondi area of Boalkhali.
The vehicle’s owner later traced the three-wheeler to Satkania, where police later arrested five of the accused.
Sylhet Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal Judge Abdur Rashid has condemned three to death for the abduction and murder of schoolboy Abu Sayeed.
The convicts are former constable of Airport Police Station Ebadur Rahman, Awami Ulama League Sylhet district unit General Secretary Nurul Islam alias Abdur Rakib and so-called police informer Ataur Rahman Geda.
They were present in court when the verdict was pronounced.
Sayeed, a fourth grader at Shah Mir Government Primary School in Sylhet city, was abducted on Mar 11.
The kidnappers had demanded Tk 500,000 in ransom from his family.
Police recovered the child’s body from a house in Jhornar Parh Sunatala area three days later.
In Kushtia, Judge Reza Md Alamgir Hasan of Additional District and Sessions Judge Court-1 has sentenced a man to death for the murder of his pregnant wife four years ago in Doulatpur Upazila.
The accused, Rokon Mandal of the Upazila’s Najirpur, was present in court to hear the verdict.
Mandal murdered his wife Laili Khatun on Aug 26, 2011, following a quarrel. He had returned home from a gambling spree.
Mandal later dumped her body in a drain close to their house. Police recovered the decomposed remains of the woman two days later.
Police arrested the man after Laili’s father Lal Chand filed a murder case against him.
The High Court has upheld the death sentences of five people in a case over Dhaka businessman Jahangir Alam’s murder in 2008.
The murdered businessman’s wife, actress Sumaiya Kaniz Sagarika, is one of the convicts.
The four others are Ibrahim alias Yasin, Hijra Khalil, Al Amin and Khalil Sheikh.
Dhaka’s Speedy Trial Tribunal-3 on Jun 21, 2010, had sentenced them to death in the case.
The convicts then moved the High Court challenging the verdict.
Metal trader Jahangir Alam, who lived with his wife Sagarika and their daughters Anamika, Asha and Apurba in the capital’s Postogola area, was murdered on Nov 8, 2008.
Alam’s father Firoz Alam subsequently filed a murder case with Shyampur police, accusing seven people, including Sagarika, of committing the crime.
According to the case details, Sagarika was involved in an extramarital relationship and she had the others -- convicted in the case -- murder her husband. (Sources: bdnews24.com, 30/11/2015)