Rupa rape, murder case verdict Feb 12

A Tangail court yesterday set February 12 for delivering the verdict in the case filed for rape and murder of law student Rupa Khatun in a moving bus.

After closing arguments of both sides, the court of Abul Mansur Miah, acting judge of Tangail Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal, came up with the decision.

All the five accused in the case are now in jail.

On Sunday, the court set yesterday for hearing arguments from both sides on legal points after the defence concluded their arguments on the day, seeking acquittal of all the accused in the case, said advocate Ataur Rahman Azad, Tangail district unit secretary of Bangladesh Manobadhikar Bastobayon Sangstha, which assists the prosecution in the case.  

On January 31, the prosecution on the concluding day of their arguments sought capital punishment for all the accused, saying that they were able to prove the allegations against them, he said.

Trial of the case began on January 3 with recording deposition of the plaintiff of the case. Later, 26 more witnesses, including the investigation officer of the case, the doctor who conducted the autopsy on Rupa and the senior judicial magistrates who recorded confessional statements of the accused under Section 164, gave their statements before the court, he added.

On August 25 last year, police recovered an unidentified body of a woman near Tangail-Mymensingh road in Tangail's Madhupur.

Sub-inspector Aminul Islam of Aronkhola Police Outpost in Madhupur filed a murder case with Madhupur Police Station on the same day. 

Following an autopsy, the body was buried at the Tangail central graveyard the next day.

Seeing the news in the media, Rupa's family members went to Madhupur Police Station on August 28 and identified her from the photographs.

The law enforcers on the same day detained five employees of a bus -- helpers Shamim, 26, Akram, 35, and Jahangir, 20, driver Habibur, 45, and bus supervisor Safar Ali, 55 -- in Madhupur.

The arrestees during interrogation admitted their involvement in the crime, police sources said.

The Senior Judicial Magistrate's Court in Tangail on August 29 and 30 recorded confessional statements of the arrestees under Section 164 and sent them to jail.

Following a court order, police on August 31 exhumed Rupa's body and handed it over to her family. The victim was later buried at her village in Sirajganj's Tarash upazila.

On October 15, Sub-inspector Kaiyum Khan Siddique, investigation officer of the case and the then in-charge of Aronkhola Police Outpost in Madhupur, pressed charges against the five accused.

On November 29, District and Sessions Judge in Tangail Robiul Hasan, who worked as the acting judge of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal, framed charges against the five transport workers.