Keraniganj girl murder convicts’ sentence upheld

The High Court today upheld a lower court verdict that had sentenced a man to death and four others to life imprisonment for killing Anamika Ghosh, a nine-year-old girl, after abduction for ransom at Keraniganj in Dhaka in 2009.

The convict with death is Mohammad Manik while the four others, who were sentenced to death, are Jony Ghosh, Anwar Hossain, Nurul Islam and Mohammad Alauddin.

Anamika, a student of class three of Pacific Kindergarten School at Bamansur in Keraniganj, was kidnapped by a group of miscreants for Tk 10 lakh as ransom while the victim was returning home from the school around 11:00am on February 26, 2009, according to the case statements.

After receiving a phone call from the abductors, the victim's father Sudharam Ghosh paid Tk 2.10 lakh for saving his daughter. But the kidnappers killed the victim and dumped the body at a paddy field under Shivalaya upazila in the district.

Police then recovered decomposed body from there and arrested the kidnappers through mobile tracking from different places for their alleged involvement with the abduction and killing, Deputy Attorney General Moniruzzaman Rubel told The Daily Star citing from the case statements.

The HC bench of Justice Bhabani Prasad Singha and Justice SM Mozibur Rahman today came up with the verdict after rejecting the appeals filed by the convicts challenging the lower court judgment.

DAG Moniruzzaman said the HC upheld the lower court verdict, as all the convicts had confessed to their guilt of killing of Anamika.

The Speedy Trial Tribunal-4 of Dhaka on December 31, 2009 sentenced Manik to death and life imprisonment to Jony, Anwar, Nurul Islam and Alauddin for committing the offences.