A court has delivered its verdict in the rape and murder case of a five-year-old child in Dhobaura, Mymensingh. Of the four accused, three were sentenced to death and a fourth, a minor, was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison. The trial was completed and the verdict delivered just 24 days after the incident and within 10 working days.
The Child Violence Suppression Tribunal and the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal of the Mymensingh Chief Judicial Magistrate Court separately delivered the verdicts on Thursday afternoon.
According to court sources, with the charges proven, Arif, Rakib and Sayem were sentenced to death under Section 9(3) of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act. Each was also fined Tk 200,000, which the court ordered be paid to the victim’s family. The verdict was delivered by Judge Sudipta Sarkar of the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court’s Child Violence Suppression Tribunal.
Separately, the minor defendant was sentenced to 10 years in prison, plus an additional two and a half years under Section 201 of the Penal Code. This verdict was delivered by Judge Mesbah Uddin Ahmed of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal. Under the ruling, both sentences will run concurrently. The minor defendant will be held at a child development center for as long as he remains a minor, after which he will be transferred to a general prison.
Court sources said that since the defense had no lawyer, the court appointed a state-side lawyer. The court delivered its final verdict after completing testimony and cross-examination of 18 witnesses in just 10 working days.
According to the case, on the afternoon of June 14, four young men lured the child — who was returning home after buying chips from a local market — into a forest on the bank of the Kangsha River on the pretext of giving her kadam flowers, and gang-raped her. They then threw her into the river alive and held her underwater to ensure her death before burying the body on the riverbed. Police recovered the body the same night. Police submitted the charge sheet to court within nine days of the incident.
Confirming the verdict, the special public prosecutor for the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal told media: “Completing a trial this quickly, within just 24 days, is unprecedented. The prosecution and the victim’s family are fully satisfied with this verdict. We hope this exemplary ruling will send a strong message to criminals in society.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report