Cannot provide ‘license’ to kill people in name of lynching: HC 

The High Court has observed that allowing people to be killed in medieval barbarity in the name of mass lynching will be a cause of fear and insecurity for any person in the society. 

It made the observation on Sunday (18 September) while ordering monitoring to ensure justice in the murder case of Taslima Begum Renu, who was killed in a mass lynching over child abduction rumors in the capital's Badda in 2019.

The court said it will not be possible to prevent the recurrence of this incident and the tendency of public to take the law into their own hands unless exemplary punishment is ensured to the real criminals.  

The High Court bench of Justice Md Rezaul Hasan and Justice Md Atabullah issued the instructions and made observations in this regard. Deputy Attorney General Emran Ahmed Bhuiyan represented the state.

The court observed that Renu, the victim was not running away and no child was found in his custody. 

"The accused formed an illegal mob and unlawfully entered the room of the school headmistress shouting inflammatory slogans and dragged the victim out. Despite the fact that she [Renu] had not committed any crime, she was forcibly detained and, ignoring the defenceless mother's plea for survival, brutally and cruelly inflicted repeated and repeated blows on her body with the aim of ensuring her death." 

There is evidence that a common intention to ensure the death of the victim arose at the scene, the court observed. 

An HC rule was also issued on the same day, seeking to know why instructions should not be given for taking necessary steps and supervision, including ensuring the presence of witnesses as usual and on time, in order to ensure justice to Renu murder case. 

The rule was issued in accordance with the provisions of section 439 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898 that will remain in force until the case is resolved. 

The Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka has been asked to respond to the rule within the next eight weeks. 

A mob bludgeoned Renu, 40, a single-mother of two, to death suspecting her a child lifter, in front of North Badda Government Primary School in the morning on 20 July, 2019.

It was later learned that Renu went there to take information regarding admission of her daughter Tahsin Tuba, 4, at that school.

Police, after scrutinising the vicious video clippings of the incident, managed to arrest almost all the culprits, including Ria Khatun, 35, who started the ruckus by terming Renu a child lifter, and Ibrahim Hossain Hridoy, the man who was seen most active in beating Renu, even thrashing her seemingly lifeless body.

Her nephew Syed Nasir Uddin filed a case against 400 to 500 unidentified people with Badda Police Station.

Renu, who hailed from Raipur upazila of Lakshmipur district, resided in the capital's Mohakhali area with her five-year-old daughter Tuba and 12-year-old son Tahsin. She had been divorced by her husband two years before the incident.