RAKIB MURDER Death sentences of 2 commuted to life terms

The High Court on Tuesday commuted the death sentences of motorcycle repair workshop owner Md Shorif and worker Md Mintu Khan to imprisonment for life term for killing co-worker 14-year-old Rakib Hawlader in Khulna by pumping air into his body inserting a high-pressure air pump nozzle into the rectum on August 3, 2015.
The bench of Justice Jahangir Hossain Selim and Justice Jahangir Hossain also directed the two convicts to pay Tk 50,000 each or to serve two more years in jail if they failed to pay the money.
The court directed the jail authorities to give the money to the legal heir of the victim after the realisation.
Rakib’s father Nur Alam said that he would appeal to the Appellate Division seeking death sentences of the killers.
The bench pronounced the verdict in the death reference against the two and their appeals against the death sentences.
The court commuted the death sentences to life sentences observing that evidences in the case proved that the convicts had tried to save the life of the victim.
The court said that the convicts had taken Rakib to three hospitals in Khulna before he died and Mintu donated blood to Rakib while Shorif purchased some medicines.
The verdict also said that the convicts had no previous crime records.
The court found that the convicts forcibly took Rakib to Shorif Motors where Mintu inserted a high-pressure air pump nozzle into the rectum taking the boy on his lap and Shorif switched on the pump.
As Rakib became sick with bloated stomach, the convicts rushed him to a nearby hospital.
The convicts stopped Rakib at Shorif Motors at 4:00 on August 3, 2015 while he was passing through the workshop to buy fuel oil for another workshop he worked leaving his job at Shorif Motors four to five months ago.
The court said that the convicts were angry with him as Rakib left Shorif Motors and joined another workshop for the betterment of his family. 
The court observed that the crime was so severe that it was not happened in the past 100 years in the subcontinent. 
‘Even doctors were confused about Rakib’s treatment of exceptional incident,’ it said.
The incident was so cruel and heinous that the convicts were manhandled after the victim died just after he was headed for the Dhaka Medical Hospital from the Khulna Medical Hospital in the evening on August 3, 2015. 
The convicts had confessed to the crime saying that committed it just for fun. 
The bench pronounced the verdict modifying the Khulna Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court’s judgement in which the convicts were sentenced to death on November 8, 2015.
The trial court had acquitted Shorif’s mother Beauty Begum, who was charged with the crimes on allegation that she had pressed Rakib’s legs against the ground during the incident. 
The High Court said that there was lone independent witness of the incident.
The brutal killings of Rakib and 13-year-old Samiul Alam Rajon in Sylhet, who was tortured to death on July 8, 2015, caused outrage in home and abroad.
The trial courts had delivered verdicts in the two sensational cases on November 8, 2015.
The same High Court bench is scheduled for April 11 to pronounced verdict in the death reference against four convicts and appeals of six convicts against sentences to imprisonment for varying terms for torturing and killing Samiul.
Deputy attorney general Zahirul Haque told reporters that he would recommend filing appeal against the High Court verdict in Rakib murder case while defence lawyers ASM Abdul Mobin, Golam Mohammad Chowdhury Alal and Mahbub-Ul-Islam expressed satisfaction with the verdict. 
New Age correspondent in Khulna reported that the victim’s father Nur Alam said in the afternoon that he would appeal to the Appellate Division seeking death sentences of the killers.
‘Khulna people staged demonstration demanding capital punishment for the killers and they got expected punishment in the trial court,’ he wailed.
Nur said that he would appeal to the Supreme Court seeking death penalty of the killers. 

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