BANGLADESH: HC COMMUTES DEATH SENTENCES IN TANGAIL BUS RAPE AND MURDER CASE

March 11, 2025:

The High Court on January 27, 2025 commuted the death sentences of three convicts in the 2017 rape and murder of college student Zakia Sultana Rupa in a moving bus near Modhupur upazila in Tangail.
A bench of Justice JBM Hassan and Justice Md Toufiq Inam announced the verdict, reducing the punishments of bus driver Habibur Rahman and his assistants Shamim and Jahangir.
The High Court reduced the death sentences of Shamim and Jahangir to life imprisonment, while commuted Habibur’s death sentence to a seven-year jail sentence. The court noted that the other convict, Akram, who was also handed capital punishment in trial court, had died in custody.
Rupa, a law student, was traveling from Bogura to Mymensingh on August 25, 2017, aboard a bus operated by Chhoa Paribahan.
She was raped by the convicts who subsequently murdered her.
Her body was dumped in the Modhupur forest, where it was later recovered by the police. Rupa was buried as an unidentified individual at the Tangail Central Graveyard. The incident, once discovered, shocked the nation, sparking widespread outrage.
The case was tried in Tangail’s First Additional District and Sessions Judge’s Court that sentenced the four men to death on February 12, 2018.
The court also handed bus supervisor Safar Ali a seven-year jail term along with a Tk 1 lakh fine. The High Court upheld Safar’s sentence.
Additionally, the High Court directed the authorities to return the bus involved in the incident to its owner.
Deputy attorney general Masud Rana represented the state, while senior lawyer Ahsan Ullah defended the convicts during the High Court proceedings.
The verdict was delivered after reviewing the death reference and appeals filed by convicts. Deputy Attorney General Rana said the HC considered the convicts' young age and their long period in jail while reducing the sentences.
The state will move an appeal challenging the verdict before the Supreme Court's Appellate Division.