Gulam Rabbani :
Shukur Ali, Nuruddin Sentu, Azanur Rahman, Mamun Hossain and Kamrul Islam were sentenced to death by a Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal in Kushita on February 4 in 2009 in a case filed for abduction, rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl.
After the verdict all the five convict were kept in the Kushtia district jail’s condemned cell as per rule. The apex court, however, recently commuted the death sentence of three convicted persons and ordered to transfer them to the regular cell from the condemned cell of the jail. But in the meantime they passed 12 years in the condemned cell.
Challenging the trial court conviction, the accused filed appeal petitions and upon hearing the High Court in 2014 upheld the sentence. In the meantime, one of the convicted persons, Kamrul, died and remaining four convicts filed appeal with the Appellate Division challenging the High Court judgment.
After hearing on the appeal petitions, the Appellate Division on August 18 in 2021 affirmed the death penalty of Shukur Ali and commuted death sentences of three others to life imprisonment in the case filed in 2004.
The Appellate Division of the SC also asked the jail authorities to shift the three convicts, Nuruddin Sentu, Azanur Rahman and Mamun Hossain, whose death sentences were commuted, in the regular cell from the condemn cell.
A five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain delivered the verdict after hearing separate appeal petitions filed by the convicts challenging the High Court judgment that confirmed their death sentences in the case.
Convict Shukur Ali has right to seek review of the apex court verdict and presidential mercy to save his life. If his mercy appeals are rejected, the jail authorities can execute the death sentence, the court said.
According to the case statement, a 13-year-old victim of Lalnagar village under Kushtia’s Daulatpur Upazila went to a neighbour’s house to watch television on the night of March 25, 2004.
The convicts abducted her while she was returning home. They took her to a tobacco field and raped and killed her there. The following day, her father filed a case with Daulatpur Police Station in connection with the incident.
This is not the only case where the justice was delayed. There are thousands of cases pending with the courts for years. This delay is frustrating the justice seeking people and creating backlog in the courts.
Barrister Raghib Rouf Chowdhury, a Supreme Court lawyer, said, “Most laws, including Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, especially those have been enacted for a specific purpose, clearly stated how long does it take to complete each investigation, to complete hearing and to dispose of the case. So within how many days basically a hearing will be held or a case will be settled after a crime occurs, this provision is in our existing law. For that reason if the scope of the existing law is strictly followed, there is a chance that the cases will be disposed of expeditiously.”
“But in the real sense the hearing of the cases is being delayed mainly due to the delay in the investigation of the cases, non-appearance of witnesses in due time, and other various formalities in the trial process,” added the lawyer.
“If we look into the present case then we can see the trial court delivered verdict in 2009 over a 2004 incident. Here the verdict comes after five years of the crime occurrence. Thus, the verdict of every case is being delayed. Where the hearing of the case is supposed to end within six months, it took five years to be disposed of. Again the appeal to the High Court ended in 2014 meaning the case was disposed of in the High Court after five more years. And after seven years of 2014 this case was heard in the Appellate Division,” he also said.
“If it takes 17 years to confirm the sentence of an offence then I think as a lawyer that the society will get a wrong massage. The provision of punishment for a crime has been enacted so that an information or message goes to the society that keep the others stay away from any such crime. But when it is seen that hearing on a case takes year after year or 10 years or 20 years after the occurrence of an offence then a kind of perception is grown in our society that even if anyone commits a crime he may somehow get out of that punishments or trial.”
“It is very important that the investigation process should be completed on time. The investigation department in different developed countries works independently. So in our country also the investigation process or team has to be separated first and they have to complete the investigation process of a case on time as described in the laws. Secondly the trial courts have to be strict in recording the testimonies so that the trial can be completed in time.”
