Five sentenced to death for murdering police constable Badal

Badal Miah was in charge of controlling CCTV footage during the Ganajagaran Mancha movement

A Dhaka court has sentenced five people to death for the murder of police constable Badal Miah in the capital's Motijheel a decade ago. 

Judge Tahsin Iftekhar of the Dhaka Additional Metropolitan Sessions Court-7 delivered the judgement on Tuesday and also fined them Tk 10,0000 each. 

The court has also slapped each of them with

a seven-year rigorous imprisonment term and a fine of Tk 15,000 for their role in hiding the body. Failure to pay the fine will lead to an additional 5 months of imprisonment. 

The death row convicts are Ripon Nath Ghosh, Biswajit Chandra Das, Ibrahim Khalil alias Kosai Khalil, Ratan Chandra Das and Humayun Kabir. 

Among the convicts, Biswajit, Ibrahim and Ratan were produced before the court from jail prior to pronouncement of the judgement, while the court issued arrest warrants for two other convicts as they had been absconding, Public Prosecutor Md Mahbubur Rahman told bdnews24.com. 

The slain Badal was in charge of controlling CCTV footage during the Ganajagaran Mancha movement, said Mahbubur. 

Youths, bloggers and online activists February 2013 started a demonstration at Shahbagh demanding the death penalty for Jamaat-e-Islami leader and war crimes convict Abdul Quader Molla after he was handed down life imprisonment by the International Crimes Tribunal. 

According to the case documents, the police recovered the unidentified body of a man from Motijheel’s T&T Colony area on Feb 22, 2013. Later it was identified as that of police constable Badal. Motijheel Police Station Sub-Inspector Abdul Latif filed a case over the incident. 

The accused were later arrested. 

Based on their confessional statement in court, Ripon, Biswajit, and Khokon were arrested for their involvement in the explosion at the AGB Colony area of Motijheel on Nov 9, 2012. 

A case was filed on Dec 9, 2012, at Motijheel Police Station under the Explosives Act against Rajib and Gopal Chandra Ghosh, who are relatives of the accused. The accused believed that Badal informed the police, leading to Sajib's arrest. 

On Feb 21, 2013, the convicts abducted Badal from his workplace in Shahbagh and strangled him by wrapping a towel around his neck near the Culvert Road area in Motijheel. The killers dumped the body near T&T School and College with a view to hiding the body. 

Detective Branch Inspector Ziaul Alam submitted the charge sheet in court, accusing five people on Apr 5, 2015. 

The court recorded the statements of 25 witnesses out of the 34 during the trial.