The International Crimes Tribunal has sentenced former Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) commissioner Habibur Rahman and two others to death over the shooting of a young man hanging from a building cornice and the killing of two people in the capital’s Rampura during the July uprising. One other person was sentenced to life imprisonment and another police member to 20 years.
The three-member International Crimes Tribunal-1, led by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mojumder, delivered the verdict on Sunday.
The other two sentenced to death are former additional deputy commissioner (ADC) of the DMP’s Khilgaon zone, Md Rashedul Islam, and former officer-in-charge of Rampura police station, Md Mashiur Rahman.
The court sentenced former sub-inspector (SI) of Rampura police station Tarikul Islam Bhuiyan to life imprisonment and the then assistant sub-inspector (ASI) of the Rampura police outpost, Chanchal Chandra Sarkar, to 20 years.
Of the five accused in the case, Chanchal is under arrest. He was produced before the court on Sunday.
According to the case records, three broad charges were brought against the accused when charges were framed.
The first charge said that in 2024, on the direct orders of the then prime minister and senior officials and on the order of the then DMP commissioner Habibur Rahman, the accused went beyond their assigned areas to suppress the quota-reform movement and attacked students and members of the public with lethal weapons. At around 2pm to 2:30pm on 19 July that year, police opened indiscriminate fire in the alley in front of the Jame Mosque in Banasree’s H Block. Md Nadim, 38, was hit by two bullets in the abdomen and died on the spot.
The second charge described the shooting and grave wounding, with intent to kill, of Amir Hossain, an 18-year-old hanging from a cornice. On the afternoon of 19 July 2024, while returning home from work, Amir Hossain took shelter in an under-construction Dhaka South City Corporation building beside the Banasree Jame Mosque after coming under indiscriminate police fire and being chased. To save himself, he hung from a casting pipe on the third-floor roof of the building. ASI Chanchal Chandra Sarkar and SI Tarikul Islam Bhuiyan arrived and told him to jump down. When he did not, six shots were fired at him in succession, gravely wounding him.
The third charge concerns the fatal shooting of a 60-year-old woman, Maya Islam, and the attempted murder of her six-year-old grandson. On the afternoon of 19 July 2024, the grandmother and grandson were inside the gate on the ground floor of a house in front of Rampura police station in Banasree’s G Block. As the accused were firing continuously, a police bullet pierced the child’s head and struck his grandmother, Maya Islam, in the abdomen. She was admitted to hospital but died while undergoing treatment.
In this case, the tribunal’s investigation agency submitted its report to the chief prosecutor’s office on 31 July last year. Prosecutor Faruk Ahammed then formally submitted the prosecution’s charges to the tribunal on 7 August.
The trial began on 18 September with the framing of charges against the five police officers.
Although the case’s investigating officer and ICT investigation agency assistant director, Syed Abdur Rauf, recorded statements from 30 witnesses, the prosecution presented 14 key witnesses to conduct the case at the tribunal.
The verdict had been scheduled for 4 March, but was deferred after the prosecution applied to submit new “digital evidence.” After hearing arguments from the state and defence on 15 June, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 set Sunday for the verdict.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report