The High Court has set May 8 to deliver its verdict in the case over the 2001 bomb attack on the Chhayanaut Bengali New Year event at Dhaka’s Ramna Batamul.
The bench of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice Nasreen Akter set the date on Wednesday, reports bdnews24.com.
On Feb 18, the High Court had kept the case curia advisari vult – meaning under consideration – after hearing the death references and appeals from the suspects following the trial court’s verdict.
The case was on the cause list for Wednesday and the date was subsequently set.
Lawyers SM Shahjahan and Sarwar Ahmed represented the defence while lawyer Md Shishir Manir accompanied by Zayed Bin Amjad stood for two of the defendants.
Deputy Attorney General Sultana Akhter and Assistant Attorney General Md Asif Imran represented the state.
Militants conducted a bomb attack on the Pohela Boishakh event put on by cultural institution Chhayanaut at Dhaka’s Ramna Batamul in 2001, killing 10 people. 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.That day, Apr 14, 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 Abdul 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.
Then, on Jun 23, 2014, Dhaka Sessions Judge Ruhul Amin sentenced eight people, including prime suspect Mufti Hannan, to death and six others to life in prison.
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.
On Apr 12, 2017, Mufti Hannan was hanged in keeping with his death sentence in the murder case of former British high commissioner Anwar Choudhury. His name was dropped from the Explosives Act case over the Ramna Batamul bombing.
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.
