The High Court will deliver verdict on April 2 on the death reference and appeals in blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider killing case.

The bench of Justice Jahangir Hossain and Justice Md Jahangir Hossain yesterday set the date, as it has kept the death reference and appeals waiting for verdict after concluding their hearing on January 9.

If a lower court sentences any person to death in a case, its judgment is examined by the HC through hearing arguments for confirmation of the death sentence. The case documents and judgment reach as death reference to the HC from the lower court within seven days after the latter hands down the verdict. 

Blogger Rajib, who was an activist of Shahbagh movement and used to write against Jamaat-Shibir and war criminals on different blogs under the pseudonym Thaba Baba, was hacked to death near his Mirpur house in the capital on February 15, 2013.

On December 31, 2015, a Dhaka court handed down death penalty to two people and different jail terms to six others, including the chief of banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), for killing Rajib.

ABT chief Mufti Jasimuddin Rahmani, 45, was found guilty of provoking Rajib's murder through his sermons.

Seven other convicts -- Redwanul Azad Rana, Faisal Bin Nayem alias Dweep, Maksudul Hasan alias Anik, Ehsan Reza Rumman, Nafis Imtiaz, Nayem Sikdar Irad and Sadman Yasir Mahmud -- were students of a private university in 2013.

Of them, Rana and Dweep were sentenced to death for killing Rajib. Rana, the main suspect in the murder of writer-blogger Avijit Roy, is absconding.

The convicts except for Rana have filed separate appeals with the HC, challenging their sentences awarded by the trial court.