High Court upholds death sentences of 5 including wife

The High Court yesterday upheld the death sentences of five of the six convicts, including a model, Sumaiya Kaniz Sagorika, for killing her husband Jahangir Alam in the capital in 2008.

On November 4, a group of miscreants, led by Sagorika, 25, hacked Jahangir, 38, an iron trader of Shyampur in Old Dhaka, to death around 4:00am as he had forbidden his wife to keep in contact with other men, according to the case statement.

Victim's father Firoz Alam, along with his son-in-law Imamul Hassan, went to Jahangir's residence after hearing the news and found his son dead but Sagorika kept mum about the cause of the death, it added.

Later, a murder case was filed against Sagorika and six others.

Yesterday, the HC acquitted Ali Ashraf Liton of the murder charge and upheld the lower court verdict which sentenced Sagorika, Mohammad Ibrahim, Hizra Khalil, Al Amin and Khalil Sheikh, Deputy Attorney General Md Bashirullah said.

The government will move an appeal before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against the acquittal of Liton, he added.

On June 21, 2010, the Speedy Trial Tribunal-3 acquitted Ismail Hossain.