HC Commutes Ramna Bombing Death Sentences
The High Court has reduced the sentences of those convicted in the case over the 2001 bomb attack on the Chhayanaut Bengali New Year event at Dhaka’s Ramna Botomul.
The court commuted the death sentences of two convicts to life imprisonment, while nine others were sentenced to 10 years in prison each.
The verdict was delivered on Tuesday by a High Court bench of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice Nasreen Akter in one of the country’s most widely discussed cases of militant violence.
The ruling came after the court rejected the state’s plea to uphold the death sentences handed down by the trial court and accepted the appeals filed by the convicts.
The trial court had originally sentenced eight people to death for their involvement in the attack, which killed 10 people and injured dozens.
Earlier, on Jun 23, 2014, Dhaka’s Sessions Judge Ruhul Amin had sentenced eight people to death and six others to life imprisonment in connection with the case.
Among those convicted was Mufti Hannan, the key accused, who had also been sentenced to death in the case involving the attempted assassination of former British high commissioner Anwar Choudhury. His execution was carried out on Apr 12, 2017.
He had also received the death penalty from the trial court in the Ramna Botomul case.
Two other convicts, Abdur Rauf and Yahya, who had been sentenced to life in prison, died while their appeals were still pending before the High Court. As a result, their names, along with Mufti Hannan’s, were excluded from the final judgment.
Militants conducted the bomb attack on the Pohela Boishakh event put on by cultural institution Chhayanaut on Apr 14, 2001.
An investigation found that the attack was carried out by a fundamentalist group in an attempt to strike at the core of Bangladesh’s non-communal spirit. Later, Sgt Amal Chandra Chanda of the Nilkhet Police Outpost filed two cases -- one for murder and the other under the Explosives Act -- at the Ramna Police Station. Mufti Hannan, the chief of banned militant organisation Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI), and 13 others were accused in both cases.
Nearly eight years after the incident, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police filed a chargesheet at a Dhaka court on Nov 30, 2008, accusing 14 people in the two cases.
Apart from Mufti Hannan, Akbar Hossain, Arif Hasan Sumon, Md Tajuddin, Hafez Jahangir Alam Badar, Abu Bakar alias Hafez Selim Howlader, Abdul Hai and Shafiqur Rahman were sentenced to death.
Shahadatullah Jewel, Sabbir, Sheikh Farid, Abdur Rouf, Yahya and Abu Taher were sentenced to life in prison.
The convicts in prison later appealed to the High Court for acquittal. In addition, according to the rules for death sentences, the case was brought to the High Court for approval of the death references.
After going through several benches, hearings restarted this year in a bench headed by Justice Islam. After hearing from both the prosecution and defence, the High Court kept the case pending for a verdict date on Feb 18.
