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Published : 14 Jul 2026, 02:28 PM
A court has sentenced one man to death and handed life imprisonment to three others in a case over the gang rape of a housewife at the hostel of MC College in Sylhet.
Sylhet Divisional Speedy Trial Tribunal Judge Swapan Kumar Sarkar delivered the verdict on Tuesday afternoon in the presence of the accused, Public Prosecutor Abul Hossain said.
The verdict comes nearly six years after the assault at the college hostel.
The court sentenced the case's prime suspect, Saifur Rahman, 28, to death.
Mahbubur Rahman Rony, 25, Tarekul Islam Tarek, 28, and Arjun Laskar, 26, were each sentenced to life imprisonment.
The tribunal also fined each of them Tk 100,000.
It acquitted four other suspects: Robiul Islam, 25, Mahfuzur Rahman Masum, 25, Ain Uddin, also known as Ainul, 26, and Mizbaul Islam Rajan, 27.
According to the case documents, the woman and her husband had gone to visit MC College on the night of Sept 25, 2020, when several men allegedly abducted her from the campus and took her to a student hostel, where she was gang raped.
The following morning, the victim's husband filed a case with Shah Paran Police Station, naming Bangladesh Chhatra League activist Saifur as the key suspect alongside five others, while two additional suspects were listed as unidentified.
The incident triggered nationwide outrage, prompting protests by social, voluntary and rights organisations across Bangladesh.
Although the accused fled after the assault, police and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested the six named suspects and two others within three days.
Case records show that all eight suspects were questioned during five-day remand periods.
They later gave statements before a magistrate under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Saifur, Tarek, Rony and Arjun confessed to the rape, while Robiul and Mahfuzur admitted assisting in the crime.
The two other suspects also gave confessional statements.
DNA tests later matched samples from six of the eight suspects, according to the investigation records.
Just over two months after the assault, on Dec 3, 2020, the investigating officer, Inspector (Investigation) Indranil Bhattacharya of Shah Paran Police Station under Sylhet Metropolitan Police, submitted a 17-page chargesheet against all eight suspects.
The case was transferred from the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal to the Speedy Trial Tribunal in May last year, where the trial began.
A total of 24 witnesses testified, including the survivor, her husband, the magistrate who recorded the confessions, the investigating officer, an MC College professor and a forensic physician from Osmani Medical College Hospital.
Police also recovered a firearm from Saifur's room at the student hostel on the night of the incident, leading to a separate case under the Arms Act.
Rony was later made an accused in that case.
Another case was filed by police over allegations that the accused demanded money from the victim's husband and hijacked his vehicle.
On Jan 17, 2021, the Sylhet Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal framed charges against the suspects in the abduction and rape case, formally opening the trial.
The complainant later moved the High Court seeking an order to have the related cases heard by the same tribunal.
