Rape, Murder of Laxmipur Girl in 2012: HC confirms death for 8

The High Court yesterday confirmed the death sentence of eight robbers out of 10 and commuted the death penalty of two to life imprisonment in a case filed for raping and killing a schoolgirl in Laxmipur in 2012.

A gang of robbers swooped on the house of Krishna Lal Devnath at Dhutia village under Laxmipur Sadar upazila on July 18, 2012.

At one stage, the gang took the girl, a seventh-grader, hostage at gunpoint and raped her before fleeing the spot with the loot, including gold and cash.

Relatives rushed the critically injured girl to the Sadar hospital where doctors declared her dead.

Her father filed a case against unnamed robbers the next day. Police pressed charges against 25 people on May 15, 2013, according to the case statement. A Laxmipur court on September 16, 2014 sentenced 10 robbers to death in this regard.

Yesterday, the HC bench of Justice Bhabani Prasad Singha and Justice Md Kamrul Hossain Mollah delivered the verdict after hearing the death reference of the case and the appeals filed by the convicted accused against the trial court verdict.

The eight offenders whose death sentences were confirmed by the HC are -- Nur Nobi, Hedayet Ullah Hedu, Hiron, Saddam (absconding), Nur Alam, Manik (absconding), Rashed (absconding) and Sumon (absconding), Deputy Attorney General Md Aminul Islam told The Daily Star.

The two accused whose death sentences have been commutted to life imprisonment are Sohel and Anwar Hossain, he added.

DAG Aminul said the HC delivered the verdict as nine of the convicted accused have made confessional statements before the magistrate and their statements corroborated with each other.

Details of the HC verdict could not be known as its full text was not released yesterday.

Barrister AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon appeared for the accused who are in the jail custody while state appointed lawyers ASM Shafiqul Islam Kazal and Md Hafizur Rahman Khan argued for the absconding convicts.