‘No punishment is enough’
"He murdered my child. If there were a punishment higher than death sentence, that too would not be enough for his crimes."
Abdus Salam, father of six-year-old Samia Afrin Saima, who was raped and murdered in Wari, said this after a Dhaka court sentenced lone accused Harun Or Rashid to death in the case.
Salam said he was satisfied with the verdict and now hopes that it will be implemented as quickly as possible. Saima's father said he believes this is a message to everyone that perpetrators of such crimes will not be spared.
Saima, a nursery student, was murdered after she was raped in the building where she lived with her family at Dhaka's Wari on July 5 last year.
A day after the murder, her father filed a case under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act with Wari Police Station.
Yesterday, Judge Kazi Abdul Hannan of Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-1 in Dhaka announced the judgement in presence of the lone accused.
The judge said the innocent child had been a victim of the highest form of barbarity by accused Harun. Therefore, the accused could not get any compassion from the court. It is reasonable to give Harun the maximum punishment, the judge said in the observation.
On July 5 last year, the accused took Samia Afrin Saima to the roof of the eight-storey building in Wari, saying that he would show her the view and raped the six-year-old inside an empty flat. When she passed out, he strangled her with a rope.
The murder shook the country, triggering protests by students, teachers and parents.
Harun was arrested from Cumilla on July 7 last year and police pressed charges against him on November 4. The court framed the charges on January 2 this year and recorded the statements of 14 prosecution witnesses out of 17 in the case.
The trial of the murder case started on January 8 and in an exemplary move, the court finished the trial in just two months.
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