16 charged in Feni madrasa student murder case

The Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) on Wednesday submitted charge sheet against 16 accused in connection with the murder of madrasa student Nusrat Jahan Rafi before a Feni court, reports BSS.

The charge sheet was submitted to the court of senior judicial magistrate Zakir Hossain in the afternoon.

The accused are Madrasa’s ex-principal SM Siraj Ud Doula, 57, Nur Uddin, 20, Shahdat Hossain Shamim, 20, Maksud Alam alias Moksud Al councillor, 50, Saifur Rahman Mohammad Jobayer, 21, Jabed Hossain alias Sakhwat Hossain Jaber, 19, Hafez Abdul Kader, 25, Afsar Uddin, 33, Kamrun Nahar Moni, 19, Umme Sultana Popy alias Tuhin alias Shampa alias Champa,19, Abdur Rahim Sharif, 20, Eftekhar Uddin Rana, 22, Imran Hossain alias Mamun, 22, Mohammad Shamim, 20, Ruhul Amin,55, and Mohiuddin Shakil,20.

The case will be transferred to the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal on Thursday and a hearing on the case will be held there.

Earlier, PBI chief Banaj Kumar Majumdar on Tuesday at a press conference said that a charge sheet against 16 accused over the murder of Nusrat Jahan Rafi would be submitted on Wednesday (Today).

Majumdar said among the 16 accused, 12 have already given their confessional statements before the magistrate.

The PBI chief said death sentence has been sought in the final charge sheet for the 16 accused in Nusrat murder case. All the accused have already been arrested, he added.

Nusrat had accused Feni’s Sonagazi Islamia Senior Fazil Madrasah principal Siraj Ud Doula of harassing her sexually on 27 March. She was exposed to his extreme vengeance on 6 April when she went to the madrasa to appear in the HSC equivalent ‘Alim’ examination.

A group of masked youths, reported to be principal’s stooge, took Nusrat to the rooftop and set her on fire in their bid to kill her.

Nusrat succumbed to her injuries at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) in the capital on 10 April.

Finding police negligent in taking actions against the accused, the case was later handed over to PBI and the officer-in-charge of Feni’s Sonagazi police station was suspended.