Staff Reporter :
The High Court on Wednesday released the full text of the verdict in the Pilkhana carnage case.
The 29059-page long verdict was released after the judges of the three-member special bench of High Court of Justice Md Shawkat Hossain, Justice Md Abu Zafor Siddique and Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder signed it around 10:30 am.
The convicted accused can now file appeals with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in thirty days challenging the High Court verdict on them.
The verdict has made observations, recommendations, findings and causes of the sentences in details in the full text of the verdict.
This is the largest judgement in the history of the world judiciary, said a summary of the judgement supplied by Md Saifur Rahman, special officer of the High Court division of the Supreme Court.
In the recommendations, the judges said, “It is the pious wish of this court that the members of the BDR (now BGB) should not carry out any activity like operation ‘Dal-Vhat’ which hurt the pride and self-respect of the BGB members. The BGB authority should not take up any activity that gradually results in degeneration of the soldierly attitude and behavior of the BGB members.”
“This court strongly feels that the BGB authority should make an inquiry into the matter by forming a prove committee as to why the Rifles Security Unit (RSU) of BDR (now BGB) failed to provide necessary information of the BDR massacres happened on 25-26 February in 2009 at philkhana before commission of the same and they should make it public as early as possible,” also included the recommendations.
On November 27, 2017, the special HC bench pronounced the verdict that confirmed death penalty of 139 of the 152 accused who were awarded capital punishment by a trial court for their involvement in the carnage during the mutiny by the paramilitary force members.
The HC also gave life term imprisonment to 185 accused and jailed other 200 accused for different terms and acquitted 45 accused.
The trial court on November 5, 2013, gave death sentences to 150 BDR soldiers and two civilians, and jailed 161 others for life for their role and involvement in the carnage. It also handed down rigorous imprisonment to 256 people, mostly BDR soldiers.
The court acquitted the remaining 277 accused, but the government later appealed against the acquittal of 69 of them.
The trial court passed the judgment after examining 654 out of 1,354 prosecution witnesses in the biggest criminal case in the history of the country.
Among the lower court’s death convicts, the HC commuted death of eight to life-term imprisonment and acquitted four others. Another death row convict died earlier.
The HC upheld the life term imprisonment of 146 out of 161 convicts who were given the punishment by the lower court. Among the rest life term convicts, the HC acquitted 13 and two life term convicts died earlier.
Among the 256 convicts of different jail terms by the lower court, the HC gave jail to 184 accused for 10 years, 8 accused for 7 years, 4 accused for 3 years and acquitted 29 accused. The 28 convicts did not appeal to the High Court and three died earlier.
