STAFF CORRESPONDENT

The High Court (HC) has commuted the death sentences of two convicts to life imprisonment and reduced another’s sentence to seven years in the 2017 rape and murder case of Zakia Sultana Rupa, a Dhaka Ideal Law College student, on a running bus in Madhupur, Tangail.

The court reduced the death sentences of bus assistants Mohammad Shamim and Jahangir to life imprisonment and fined them Tk 1 lakh each.

Bus driver Habib Miah’s death sentence was commuted to seven years’ imprisonment with a fine of Tk 20,000. Another convict, bus helper Akram, was exempted as he died in jail.

The verdict was delivered after reviewing the death reference and appeals filed by convicts. Deputy Attorney General M Masud Rana said the HC considered the convicts’ young age and their long period in jail while reducing the sentences.

The state will move an appeal challenging the verdict before the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division.

Rupa, 27, was raped and killed on a bus headed to Mymensingh by three assistants of the driver on August 25, 2017.