Offenders to benefit if trial is delayed

The High Court yesterday observed that delays in the Narayanganj seven-murder trials could benefit the accused.

The bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Amir Hossain came up with the observation while hearing a revision petition that sought its order on the police to conduct a further investigation into the case.

The court said the charge sheet in the Narayanganj seven-murder case was apparently defective and asked the lawyers concerned to find the faults in the charge sheet.

The bench commented that police can submit a supplementary charge sheet of the case to the lower court concerned in the course of the trial.

It also asked the petitioner's lawyers Abdul Baset Majumder and Montu Ghosh and Deputy Attorney General Shaikh AKM Moniruzzaman Kabir to examine whether there was any element in the petition upon which the court could order the police to conduct further investigation into the case.

The court adjourned the hearing on the petition until 3:00pm on December 6.

Selina Islam, wife of Narayanganj city panel mayor Nazrul Islam who was among the seven victims abducted and killed in April last year, recently submitted the petition, saying that five people's names were included in the first information report (FIR) but were dropped from the charge sheet.

The five are Yasin Miah, Aminul Haque, Hasmat Ali, Iqbal Hossain and Anwar Hossain.

During yesterday's hearing, Abdul Baset Majumder prayed to the HC to direct the police to conduct a further investigation into the case and take principal accused Nur Hossain, who had been brought back to the country from India, on remand for interrogation.

Seven people, including Nazrul and senior lawyer Chandan Sarker, were abducted from the Dhaka-Narayanganj Link Road on April 27, 2014. Their bodies were found floating in the Shitalakkhya river a few days later.

On November 9 this year, Narayanganj District and Sessions Judge Syed Enayet Hossain rejected a petition filed by Selina seeking review of the dismissal of a no confidence petition and acceptance of the charge sheet by another judge on July 8.