Kunio Hoshi Murder Case: Verdict on Feb 28

A Rangpur court yesterday fixed February 28 to deliver verdict in the case over the killing of Japanese national Kunio Hoshi in Kaunia upazila in 2015.

Charges were framed against eight members of banned militant outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh in mid-November 2016.

Five of them are in a Rangpur jail, two died in "gunfights" with law enforcers and the last is yet to be arrested.

Fifty six witnesses have testified. Prosecution and defence lawyers completed placing arguments before Special Judge's Court of Noresh Chandra Sarkar yesterday afternoon.

Two of three assailants arriving on a motorcycle shot Kunio Hoshi three times while he was going by a rickshaw to his grass farm at Alutari on the morning of October 3.

The 66-year-old had been living in the country for a year renting a house at Munshipara area in Rangpur city.

The arrestees are Masud Rana, 21, alias Mamun alias Montri and Ihsak Ali, 25, of Poshua Tangailpara village under Pirgachha upazila; Liton Mia, 23, alias Rafiq of Gabtoli area under Bogra sadar upazila; Abu Sayeed, 28, of Kaliganj Bazar under Pirgachha upazila and Shakhawat Hossain, 32, of Haldiachar in Gaibandha's Saghata upazila.

Nazrul Islam alias Bike Nazrul of Panchagarh and Saddam Hossain of Kurigram were killed in Rajshahi and Dhaka on August 1, 2016 and January 5 this year respectively.

Ansar Ullah Ansari is yet to be arrested, said Public Prosecutor Rathish Chandra Bhowmik.

The case's investigation officer is Abdul Quader Zilani, Kaunia Police Station's officer-in-charge.