Sylhet, Bangladesh (BBN)-A Bangladesh court on Sunday sentenced four people to death for killing a 13-year-old boy in July this year.
Sheikh Md Samiul Alam Rajon was beaten to death on July 8, 2015 by angry locals in Sheikhpara area beside Sylhet-Sunamganj road in Sylhet, a north-east division of Bangladesh.
Metropolitan Sessions Court in Sylhet passed the order in a jam-packed courtroom in presence of three convicts Sunday morning.
Quamrul Islam, the prime accuse; Moina, Tajuddin and Zakir will have to die for killing the minor boy. Of them, Zakir is on the run.
Judge Akbar Hossain Mridha, of the Metropolitan Sessions Court in Sylhet, also sentenced another accused for life.
He also sentenced three more accused in different terms.
On July 8, Rajon was attacked after the men allegedly accused him of stealing a rickshaw van.
One of the attackers allegedly filmed the assault on his mobile phone.
The footage showed the boy being tied to a pole and hit repeatedly with a rod.
The video, which was posted on the internet, showed the boy pleading for his life and crying for water, and screaming: “Please don’t beat me like this, I will die.”
An autopsy found that the 13-year-old had 64 separate injuries.
While suspected thieves are often attacked by mobs in Bangladesh, the brutality of this particular attack caused widespread outrage and led to police forming a special squad to investigate the killing.
Ten men have been arrested in Bangladesh since the July 8 attack and have confessed their roles in the crime.
Another three who fled Sylhet have also been charged in absentia with murder.
Kamrul Islam, who was the prime guilty was arrested in Saudi Arabia after officials there were reported to have been tipped off by members of the country’s large expatriate Bangladeshi community.
Later, Kamrul was repatriated in Bangladesh.
Thousands of people demonstrated in Sylhet and other parts of the Bangladesh over the killing.
A Twitter page in Samiul Alam Rajon’s honour has been set up after the outrage.
Earlier, the victim’s father, Sheikh Azizur Rahman said that he will not rest “until the culprits get proper punishment”.
Samiul Alam Rajon’s family say he was falsely accused to theft, and police say they found no evidence he stole the rickshaw-van.
BBN/SK/AD
BBN/SK/AD