Staff Correspondent

Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain yesterday said the society cannot be made crime-free by only giving rigorous punishments like death sentence and life imprisonment.

“Only the hanging (execution of death sentence) cannot protect the society,” he said while presiding over a full bench of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court for virtually hearing and disposing of appeals in connection with some murder cases.

“The law and order situation of our country is not worse than that of India in any manner. A total of 121 death sentences took place in India in 2019 and 327 death sentences took place in Bangladesh in that year,” the chief justice said.

He also said, “Death sentence or life imprisonment are being given to husbands for killing wives in around 80 percent cases here (Bangladesh). Did the offence of killing wives reduce here? So, it’s a wrong idea that the society will be free of crimes by punishments.”

The chief justice, however, did not disclose any suggestion for making the society crime free.

With making the observation, the Appellate Division led by the chief justice commuted death sentence of a convicted husband to life imprisonment in a case filed for killing his wife and commuted death sentence of a convicted father to 10 years’ imprisonment for killing his 4-year-old son in Barishal.

The apex court commuted death sentence of Md Mamun of Charghat upazila in Rajshahi in a case filed for killing his wife Nahar Begum in 2004.

Additional Attorney General Sk Md Morshed told The Daily Star that Mamun (28) strangled his wife Nahar (22) to death in a family feud over dowry on December 6, 2004.

The Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-2 on July 21, 2008 convicted and sentenced Mamun to death. On November 25, 2013, the High Court confirmed the death sentence.