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Kazi Aref Murder

HC upholds death penalty of 9 outlaws

Staff Correspondent
The High Court yesterday upheld the death sentences given by the trial court to nine cadres of a banned outfit for mowing down Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) president Kazi Aref Ahmed and four other party leaders in Kushtia nine years baclc
The HC bench of Justice AKM Fazlur Rahman and Justice ATM Fazle Kabir acquitted 14 others, including one earlier condemned to death, on the charges.
The bench reached the verdict after hearing the arguments of the defence and the prosecution and examining the case records and statements of 41 witnesses. It observed that the murders were premeditated.
The bench said it was obvious
that confessional statements given by three detained convicts were in accord with the statements of 10 impartial witnesses, said defence lawyer Zaman Akhter Bulbul
The people whose convictions were upheld are Ilias Hossain alias Elas of Talbaria, Baker of Kishori Nagar, Mannan Mollah of Pachabhita, Anwar, Rashedul Islam Jhantu and Jahan of Kursha, Jalal of Baliashisha, Safayet Hossain Habib alias Habi of Rajnagar and Rawshan Ah of Bhabanipur, in Meherpur.
Elas, Jhantu and Habi are now in jail and gave confessional statements to the trial court while the others are in hiding.
The 14 accused cleared by the High Court are Sohir, Laltu, Lablu, Rafayet, Tikka, Akubbar, Firoz alias
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Foro, Nazrul, Wali ar Rahman. Asgar Ali, Tahsir, Gares Sardar, Muhit and ForozAli.
Sohir was condemned to death and the others were given life imprisonment by the trial court.
The convicts belong to the Gono Bahini. believed to be an offshoot of the JSD. The outfit has been behind the deaths of scores of people over the years in Kushtia and neighbouring areas.
Kazi Aref, a liberation -war organiser, and the four Kushtia unit JSD leaders were killed at a rally in Kalidaspur village in Kushtia's Daulatpur upazila on February 16.1999.
The convicted sprayed him with bullets as he was about to leave the rostrum after delivering a speech against political violence.
The four local leaders--Kushtia district unit JSD president Lokman Hossain and general secretary Yakub Ali. activists Israil Hossain and Shamser Mandal--died while trying to save the valiant freedom fighter.
Police filed a murder case with Daulatpur Police Station on the same day.
Investigators initially pressed two charge sheets against 28 people, two of whom were later killed in underground violence
The name of BNP leader Hablu Mollah. grandson of late state minister for post and telecommunications Ahsanul Haq Mollah, was dropped from the case following a home ministry order while the High Court quashed the trial proceedings against the then BNP lawmaker Reza Ahmed Bachchu Mollah, son of late Ahsanul Haq.
Five years into the grisly murders. Additional Sessions Judge of Kushtia Md Fazlur Rahman sentenced 10 of the accused to death and another 13 to life in prison on August 30.2004.
The convicts later lodged appeals to the HC against the verdict.
The HC started hearing the appeals and death references of the case on July 27 and started delivering judgement on July 30.
Advocate Mansurul Huq Chowdhury and advocate Zaman Akhter Bulbul appeared for the accused, while advocate Binoy Kumar Ghosh argued for the state.