Killing College Girl: Cop among 2 sentenced to death
A Kishoreganj court yesterday sentenced two people, including a police constable, to death and five others to four-year jail terms for killing two college girls in 2008.
The convicts are police constable Moniruzzaman Monir alias Halud, 41, from Netrokona, and his friend Shamim Hawlader alias Johir, 49, from Jhalokathi.
The court also fined them Tk one lakh each, said Taufiq Ahmed, Court Inspector of Kishoreganj.
Those who were given jail-terms are- Mustafa Mir Ranana, 55, Md Dilbor Hossain, 42, Abul Hossain, 58, Joynal Abedin, 49, and Kabir Hossain Shanto, 45. Rana is the owner of a hotel while the others were his employees, hailing from Narayanganj and Narsingdi.
The court fined each of them Tk 50,000, in default of which they will have to suffer another six months in jail. Dilbor, Mustafa and Joynal were present during the verdict delivery while the others were tried in absentia.
The punishments were handed yesterday afternoon by Kiron Shankar Halder, the judge of Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-1 in Kishoreganj.
Advocate MA Afzal, the public prosecutor of the court, said the death convicts -- Moniruzzaman, then posted at Kishoreganj Police Lines, and his friend Shamim -- had gotten acquainted with two college girls Afroza Urmi and Afroza Sumi through mobile phone conversations.
The two men took the girls to Dhaka on July 17 in 2008. They boarded two rooms in the hotel at Karwan Bazar area, where they strangled the girls after rape on the same day and left the scene. The bodies were left in the hotel rooms, said Afzal.
The hotel authorities did not inform police and dumped the bodies in Hatirjheel and Tejgoan areas to hide the murders, he said.
Police recovered the bodies the following day and two separate unnatural death cases were lodged with Ramna and Tejgoan Police Stations.
Sumi's father Abu Bakar Siddique lodged a complaint with Kishoreganj Sadar Police Station regarding the missing girls.
On information from various sources, the family members identified the bodies. The missing-person complaint was then turned into a murder case.
As there was no significant lead in the case, it was handed over to the Detective Branch (DB) of Police in Kishoreganj. The then officer-in-charge of Kishoreganj DB Md Amjad Hossain was made the investigation officer (IO) of the case.
Through mobile call lists, Moniruzzaman and Shamim were first arrested and following their confessional statements, police later arrested the hotel employees, said the IO.
Police pressed a charge sheet accusing eight persons in 2010. Of the accused Babul Mia died during trial, the IO informed.
Expressing his satisfaction over the verdict, the official also thanked the then Inspector General of Police (IGP) Nur Mohammad for rendering all-round support in the investigation.