Verdict ends their wait
Barred by police from entering the Narayanganj court premises, Morsheda Akhter stood outside the entrance, and kept waiting for the judge to deliver the verdict in the seven-murder case.
She wanted to see the murderers of her husband, Jubo League activist Moniruzzaman Swapan, get the maximum punishment.
Her hour-long wait ended around 10:00am after the judge pronounced the verdict, sentencing 26 accused to death and nine others to imprisonment for different terms.
Morsheda learnt about the verdict through a news report on her mobile phone.
“This verdict doesn't mean much to me until it is executed. I have been passing my days in utter misery since my husband was killed around three years ago,” said Morsheda, a mother of two girls aged 10 and three.
“No one from the party [the Awami League] came forward to help us,” she said with tearful eyes.
She was worried that her elder daughter, a student of class-VII, would have to face a volley of questions from her classmates and teachers about her father's murder.
The family members of Ibrahim, another victim of the seven-murder, had to borrow Tk 1,000 from a neighbour to come to the court from their village in Sonargaon upazila.
“I wanted to see the murderers of my son, and ask them why they did it,” Ibrahim's 65-year-old mother Noor Jahan told this correspondent outside the court premises.
However, none of Ibrahim's 11 family members was allowed to enter the court building.
Ibrahim was the driver of senior lawyer Chandan Sarkar, who also was brutally killed.
“Chandan used to pay my son well, and the whole family depended on his income,” said Noor Jahan.
Ibrahim's wife Hanufa Begum said, “I can barely afford to feed my children properly. It gives me some solace that the killers, despite being rich and powerful, have been convicted. I hope the fugitive convicts would be caught and punished too.”
Chandan's daughter Sushmita Sarkar, a physician, hoped the convicts would be executed soon.
Selina Islam, wife of slain Nazrul Islam and a complainant of the case, was hopeful that the verdict would be upheld when the case goes to the higher court.
No matter what the verdict is, these families are ruined forever. “Will the children get back their fathers or the wives their husbands?” asked Selina, a mother of three.
Her father Shahidul Islam, popularly known as Shahid Chairman, said he was “not fully happy with the verdict”.
He accused Narayanganj AL lawmaker Shamim Osman of playing “a role in having the names of the plotters and financers of the murders dropped from the charge sheet of the case, as they are his men”.
Shamim Osman could not be reached for comments.
Shajahan Saju, elder brother of murdered Jahangir, said the wife of his slain brother was six months pregnant when he was killed.
“When my niece grows up, she will perhaps have some consolation knowing that her father's killers have been punished,” he added.
Apart from the family members and relatives of the seven-murder victims, several hundred people curious to know about the verdict gathered in front of the court entrance since 9:00am but they were not allowed to enter.
Kamal Uddin, officer-in-charge of Fatullah Police Station, said more than 300 police personnel -- both in uniform and plain clothes -- had been deployed in and around the court premises since 6:00am yesterday.
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