Appeal hearing for Rakib murder begins

The High Court has begun the appeal hearings of the widely-discussed murder of minor boy Rakib Hawladar in Khulna.

If the appeal is rejected, the death sentence of Khulna Motor Workshop owner ‘Sharif’ and his accomplice and uncle Mintu Khan will be upheld.

The death reference hearing came before the bench of Justices Jahangir Hossain and Md Jahangir Hossain on Tuesday.

The death reference is the permission required from the High Court to proceed with a death sentence ordered by a lower court.

The case was given a priority status by the chief justice and the paperbook arrived at the High Court on Nov 10, 2015.

Simultaneously, the accused appealed against the death sentence ordered by the lower courts.

Khulna Metropolitan Sessions Judge Court Justice Dilruba Sultana gave a death sentence to Sharif and Mintu over the murder of the 12-year-old Rakib on Nov 8, 2015.

Another suspect, Sharif’s mother, was acquitted.

On Aug 3, Sharif and Khan, Rakib’s former employers, had inserted a high-pressure air pump nozzle into the child’s rectum and filled his body with air at Sharif’s motorcycle repair workshop in Tutparha.

The high pressure air ripped apart the boy’s intestines, rectum and bladder causing profuse internal bleeding in the stomach.

Rakib later died at Khulna Medical College Hospital, leading to nationwide mourning and an outcry for punishing the guilty.