Staff Reporter :
No death row female prisoner has been executed yet in the country’s prisons since 1972, said officials. At present, there are 37 death row female convicts in the country.
The capital punishment awarded to the female accused in the lower courts has been commuted to the life term in the higher court.
The latest example is Oishee Rahman. She killed her father Mahfuzur Rahman, who was Special Branch Inspector, and mother Swapna Rahman on August 16, 2013 in their Chamelibagh residence. A Dhaka court found her guilty of murder and handed down maximum penalty in 2015. But the High Court on June 5 commuted the punishment to life term. According to Prisons Headquarters, there are 75,935 prisoners in 68 jails as of June 7. About 1,456 of them are death row convicts.
Altogether 2,899 women are behind the bars. Of them, 2,369 are under trial prisoners, while 533 are serving various sentences. Only 37 are death row convicts.
There are 267 children below the age of six with the female prisoners and detainees.
Although many countries execute women prisoners, there is no such known incident in Bangladesh.
Assistant Inspector General of Prisons (Administration) Md Abdullah Al-Mamun said, “We have no information on executing female prisoners in Bangladesh. I am not aware of any such incident taking place in the country after independence.”
