Two handed death for murdering homeless child in 2005

A Dhaka court has sentenced two men to death for murdering a child with the intention of using his decapitated head for blackmail.

The victim was a homeless child, about eight to ten years old, whose identity still remains unknown. The killers suffocated him to death before severing his head with a hexablade.

The men responsible, Md Anwar Hossain aka Md Rajib aka Golam Rabbani aka Shankar Chandra Debnath, and Md Zakir Hossain, were caught by a mob in 2005 while they were carrying the child’s head.

Dhaka’s first Additional District and Sessions judge SM Saiful Islam gave the verdict on Monday.

“This cruelty and brutality on an innocent child showed the killers’ diabolical and terrifying state of mind. I believe it is appropriate to hand them maximum punishment,” the judge said.

The two men were present in court but appeared ‘inert’ after hearing the verdict, said court clerk Kalyan Kumar Singh.

According to the case statement, locals caught the two on Apr 9, 2005 with the head of the boy in a bag under the Shahjahanpur footbridge in Dhaka.

They confessed in the court that they had taken the boy from the Kamalapur railway station to Gazipur’s Joydebpur by luring him with a job offer.

According to their confessional statement, they strangled him in the Bhawal jungle, severed the head and took it to Dhaka in a polythene bag with the intentions of blackmail.

Rail police Sub-inspector Rafiqul Islam, the case investigation officer, filed the charge-sheet on July 1 that year.

According to the charge-sheet, the duo planed to extort Tk 50,000 from one Abdur Rob at Dhaka’s Paltan by blackmailing him.