EMRUL HASAN BAPPI and CHAITANYA CHANDRA HALDER

For the last 25 years, Oliar Rahman had been shuttling between Madaripur and Dhaka to appear before courts in a case filed over the death of his fellow worker.

Oliar, who was an employee of an embroidery factory at the capital’s New Super Market, was only 13 when he was arrested in the case.

He spent seven months behind bars before coming out on bail. Since then, he had to appear before courts for about 150 hearings during the long trial.

And all these years, he had to endure unfathomable mental stress and bear financial burden for being accused in the case.

Finally, Oliar’s ordeal came to an end yesterday as a Dhaka court acquitted him and four others of murder charges as the prosecution failed to prove the charges brought against them.

“I am the happiest person in the world now. I got justice at long last,” said an emotionally-choked Oliar, now 38 and father of three daughters.

“The moment I heard the verdict, I felt that I am relieved of the agony that I had been going through since my tender age,” he told The Daily Star.

Judge Monir Kamal of the Speedy Trial Tribunal-3 of Dhaka delivered the verdict around 12:20pm.

Oliar was the only accused who stood in the dock while the four others were on the run.

“I had been appearing before courts over the last 25 years. I cannot remember skipping a single hearing except one on the day after my mother’s death,” said the man, now an employee at an appliance showroom in Madaripur.