13 get death sentence for killing 6 students in Aminbazar
A Dhaka court on Thursday awarded death sentence to 13 people for beating six students to death in Borodeshi village near Aminbazar in Savar, on the outskirts of the capital city, 10 years ago.
Another 19 people were sentenced to life time imprisonment while 25 were acquitted.
The court of second additional sessions judge in Dhaka district, Ismat Jahan, pronounced the verdict.
Public prosecutor Shakila Ziasmin, who represented the state in the court, confirmed the verdict to Prothom Alo.
The hearing on the arguments of the state and the defence ended on 22 November this year. After the hearing, the court fixed 2 December as the date for pronouncing the verdict. Following that, the verdict in this case was declared on Thursday.
Shakila Ziasmin said a total of 60 people were made accused in this case. Three of them have died while 12 are on the run. Forty five accused in the case were produced before the court on Thursday.
The sources in the court say, on 8 July, 2013, the court formed charges against the 60 accused. The state produced 55 witnesses in the case. Later, the deposition started on 30 December, 2013 which ended on 18 August, last year and the argument started on 6 January this year.
According to the case details, on 17 July, 2011, seven friends went to visit Borodeshi village in Aminbazar on the night of holy Shab-e-Barat. Around 1.15am that night, some miscreants stabbed and beat them up alleging that they were robbers. Six of the students died in the incident and one survived.
The relatives of the deceased students say most of the people, who were involved in this incident, are drug peddlers and are engaged in various criminal activities.
The six deceased students are – Shams Rahim, Towhidur Rahman, Ibrahim Khalil, Tipu Sultan and Sitab Jabir and the student who survived is Al-Amin.
A day after the incident, a local sand trader named Abdul Malik filed a case against those seven as a plaintiff on the allegation of robbery. However, the allegation was proved to be false in the investigation.
After that, police filed a case with Savar police station over the killing of six students. Later, the case was handed over to Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) following a High Court order. RAB placed the charge sheet before the court mentioning names of 60 people on 13 July, 2013.
Some 92 were named as witnesses in the charge sheet. It said the accused beat up the innocent student with the intention to kill. To cover up the killing, a declaration was made from the mosque that a group of robbers had invaded the village.