HC commutes death penalty of three

The High Court yesterday commuted the death sentence of three convicts to life imprisonment in a case filed for gang rape of a Brac employee at Banshkhali in Chittagong in 2005.

The convicts are Md Shofi Alom, Md Kalu and Md Abul Hossain. Kalu is now on the run, Deputy Attorney General Md Bashir Ullah told The Daily Star.

The bench of Justice Bhabani Prasad Singha and Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam delivered the verdict after hearing the death reference and appeals filed by the convicts against the trial court verdict that had sentenced them to death, he said.

Bashir said the 30-year-old health official of Brac was a mother of three children. She was gang raped by the convicts in Jaldi area in Banshkhali on June 12, 2005.

The Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-1 of Chittagong on January 5, 2015 sentenced the three  to death, he said, adding that the HC commuted their death sentence to life imprisonment on the grounds that the two convicts were in condemn cell for a long time and death sentence for rape is harsh.