In the case over the brutal killing of eight-year-old Ramisa Akter in the capital’s Pallabi, the tribunal has sentenced the accused, Sohel Rana, and his wife, Swapna Akter, to death — and the full record has now gone to the High Court. The complete 69-page verdict, together with the three-page death reference for the two condemned, a total of 72 pages, was sent from the Metropolitan Child Violence Suppression Tribunal to the relevant division of the High Court at 3:40pm on Tuesday. Tribunal office assistant Shahidul Islam set off for the High Court with the documents; bench assistant Pankaj Peter Gomes confirmed the matter.
Earlier, on 7 June, Judge Masrur Salekin of the Dhaka Metropolitan Child Violence Suppression Tribunal ordered the death penalty for Sohel Rana and Swapna Akter in the case. According to the case record, Ramisa was a second-grade student at Popular Model High School. At about 10:30am on 19 May, her mother began looking for her to send her to school, and at one point saw the child’s shoes in front of the accused couple’s room. Getting no response to her calls, Ramisa’s parents and other residents of the building broke down the door and entered the flat — where they found the child’s dismembered body. Alerted through the national emergency service 999, police took Swapna into custody at the scene; Sohel Rana was later arrested in front of Fatullah police station in Narayanganj with the help of digital forensics.
Ramisa’s father, Abdul Hannan Molla, filed a case at Pallabi police station on 20 May naming Sohel Rana and Swapna Akter. The same day, the principal accused, Sohel Rana (30), confessed before Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Aminul Islam Junayed, and the court ordered Swapna Akter (26) jailed. On completing the investigation, the investigating officer, Pallabi police SI Ahiduzzaman, submitted a charge sheet against the two before Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Ashraful Haque on 24 May; Judge Masrur Salekin took cognisance the same day and framed charges on 1 June. Of the 18 charge-sheet witnesses, 16 testified before the tribunal.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report