Staff Reporter :
The High Court (HC) on Wednesday declared two persons, who had earlier served five years in jail, innocent after 29 years.
Abdul Quader and Mofizur Rahman were freed from jail in 1989 after serving three years for smuggling cattle from India.
Among them, Quader is still alive but Mofizur was died. The two men hailed from Jessore. According to the case statement, the case was filed against the two with Sharsha Police Station in Jessore in 1986 on charge of illegally smuggling six cattle into Bangladesh from India.
The case was filed by Lance Nayek of the then Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) Amir Ali.
A Jessore court in the same year sentenced Quader and Mofizur to five years’ imprisonment in the case.
Later, the two convicts filed an appeal with the then HC bench in Jessore in 1987. They walked out of jail in 1989.
The same year, the Jessore bench of the HC was abolished. The case then reached to the Dhaka HC. Since then the case remained pending with the court.
The Supreme Court Legal Aid Committee recently prepared the appeal for its hearing before the HC.
The HC bench of Justice Quazi Reza-ul Hoque held hearing on the appeal on Tuesday and delivered the verdict on Wednesday acquitting the duo of the charge after allowing their appeal.
The SC Legal Aid Committee panel lawyer Advocate Cumer Debul Dey told the HC that the prosecution had failed to prove that Quader and Mofizur had illegally smuggled the cattle into the country.
The lawyer told journalists that they had been proved innocent after they walked out of jail serving their three years imprisonment 29 years ago.
The case was pending before the HC for 29 years as the accused were not aware of the case and they did not peruse for its disposal, he said.
