7 outlaws get life for murder in Tangail

A court here yesterday sentenced all seven members of an outlawed party to life term rigorous imprisonment (RI) in the sensational medicine trader Kamrul Huda Ponir murder case.
Additional District and Sessions Judge, Tangail, Tabassum Islam delivered the verdict in a crowded courtroom and also fined the convicts Tk 5,000 each. In default, they will have to suffer three months more in jail.
The convicts are Tota, Hassan, Omar Faruque of village Hugra Kashinath, Zia of village Uttar Hugra, Abu Jafar of village Khord Jugini and Tula and Shamim of village Dhalan Gopalpur under Tangail Sadar upazila. They were active cadres of the extremist Biplobi Communist Party (BCP). Jafar, Tota and Shamim were present at the court during delivery of judgment. The rest four were tried in absentia.
According to the proceedings of the case, the outlaws hacked Kamrul Huda Ponir, 30, a medicine trader at Main Road in the town when he was returning to his Paradise Para residence in the town from the medicine shop at around 10:00pm on July 10, 2002. The attackers fled the scene after Ponir died on the spot.
A day after the killing, Ponir's elder brother Shamsul Huda filed a murder case against the seven people with Tangail Police Station.
Sources said, Ponir was a witness to the Baghil Union Parishad Chairman Salamat Ullah Majnu murder case filed with Tangail Sadar Police Station in 2000. Salamat was also killed allegedly by the extremists.