Staff Reporter :
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Tuesday commuted the death sentence of three convicts to imprisonment till natural death in a sensational murder case filed for killing Gopal Krishna Muhuri, former Principal of Nazirhat College in Chattogram. The principal was shot dead in his Jamal Khan Road residence in Chattogram on November 16, 2001. A three-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC headed by Justice Muhammad Imman Ali delivered the verdict after holding hearing on the appeals filed by the convicts against the High Court verdict.
The grounds on which the apex court commuted their death sentence could not be known immediately, as the full text of the verdict has not been released yet.
All three convicts, Mohammad Azam, Alamgir Kabir and Taslim Uddin Montu, are now in the condemned cell, said Deputy Attorney General Amit Das Gupta who represented the state during the hearing of the case.
Advocate Khandker Mahbub Hossain and advocate Helal Uddin Molla appeared in the court on behalf of the accused.
Amit Das Gupta added that the three convicts would be shifted to the normal cell of the jail, as they are not death-row convicts now. He, however, could not say in which jail the three convicts are serving their punishment.
A trial court in Chattogram awarded death sentence to four accused including the three and life term imprisonment to another four accused in the case.
Among the four death convicts, Nasir alias Gittu Nasir was killed in a ‘crossfire’ with Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on March 2, 2005.
Following the death reference and appeals of the death convicts, the HC on July 19, 2006 upheld the lower court verdict awarding capital punishment to three convicts for killing Gopal Krishna Muhuri.
The three convicts, who are in jail, filed three separate appeals with the SC challenging the HC verdict on them.
Among the four other accused, who got life term imprisonment by the lower court, two were discharged by the HC and two others are on run.
