Verdict on July 17

Families of 76 children, killed during 1990s by drugs adulterated with industrial toxic chemicals by manufacturers, hold their breath as July 17 is fixed for delivering judgement in a case filed over the crime.
The Dhaka Drug Court of Abdur Rashid yesterday fixed the date as the trial was capped with the prosecution's concluding argument.
The case had been stalled since 1994 following an order of the High Court. The trial resumed after November 11, 2009 following an investigation by The Daily Star and it took more than four and a half years for the case to reach the climax.
The government's alleged indifference in pursuing justice against influential businesspersons and the prosecuting body Directorate of Drug Administration's apparently intended flaws caused the delay. Every moment has meanwhile been unbearable for the justice seeker parents, some of who were interviewed by The Daily Star during its investigation.

Peyara Begum, mother of one-and-a-half-year-old Tanvir, had said: "This is the state of justice in our country. We want punishment to those involved in the crime. We want them hanged or jailed."
Incumbent Public Prosecutor Shaheen Ahmed Khan, however, regretted yesterday while pointing out to the judge that the Drug (control) Ordinance, 1982 was insufficient in getting due justice for the inhuman crime.
“It is simply a murder case. Children were killed by the drug,” Shaheen told the court.
“But even the honourable judge's power seems inadequate in trying such an offence with the current drug law providing for 10 years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Tk 200,000 as the highest punishment,” the PP lamented.
“They [the accused] deserve the highest punishment anyway.”
Two of the five accused, manager Mizanur Rahman and director Helena Pasha, were present at the court yesterday. They are being tried along with the rest in absentia for producing paracetamol syrup brand 'Flammadol' that tested positive for the toxic chemical diethylene glycol in tests conducted both at home and abroad.
The case against manufacturing company Adflame was one of the four that sued separate pharmaceuticals. Three other manufacturers accused of producing the same adulterated paracetamol syrup were Polychem Laboratories Ltd, BCI (Bangladesh) Ltd, and Rex Pharmaceuticals.
The fifth pharmaceutical -- City Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works Ltd -- was not prosecuted apparently for having a close connection with the then ruling BNP.
A DDA circular had earlier doomed the fate of all the cases even before those took effect on December 19, 1992. "As there is no appropriate arrangement in the government laboratory for detecting diethylene glycol in paracetamol syrup, samples of some of these brands have been sent abroad in November 1992 with the help of the WHO," mentioned the circular on December 5.
Uncertainty over the test's authenticity stemming from the DDA circular already helped two accused in the case against Rex Pharma getting acquitted in 2003.
The Daily Star investigation collected documents establishing that the drugs were tested properly both at home and abroad and had indeed contained the toxic chemicals.
However, even after The Daily Star probe led to resumption of the trial in the case against Adflame, complainant of the case Abul Khair Chowdhury, the then drug superintendent, spoke in favour of the accused.
To the utter astonishment of the then PP Jahangir, Khair could not even recall the manufacturing company's name, Adflame, against which he himself had filed the case.   
The cases against BCI and Polychem have still been pending with the HC since 1994.    
The Daily Star also found in October 2010 that the DDA did not have a single document preserved in relation to the adulteration.