2022 Ayat murder: Accused Abir to walk the gallows
The court has also fined the 20-year-old Tk1 lakh
A Chattogram court today (17 June) sentenced Abir Ali, the prime accused, to death for the brutal kidnapping and murder of five-year-old girl Alina Islam Ayat in November 2022.
Judge Muhammad Ali Akkas of the Sixth Additional Chattogram Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court pronounced the verdict just after midday, confirmed Public Prosecutor Advocate Jalal Uddin.
In addition to the capital punishment, the court sentenced the 20-year-old convict to one year of simple imprisonment and slapped him with a fine of Tk1 lakh. In default of payment, Abir will have to serve an additional five years of rigorous imprisonment.
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Abir, the sole adult accused in the high-profile case, was brought to the courtroom from prison under tight security shortly before the judgment was read out in a packed courtroom filled with lawyers, relatives, and journalists.
Jalal Uddin told The Business Standard that the court handed down the death penalty after reviewing the absolute proof, including the testimonies of 33 witnesses, which established the charges against the accused beyond any shadow of a doubt.
The victim's father and the plaintiff, Sohel Rana, expressed satisfaction with the verdict but urged the authorities to execute the death sentence within the next month.
On 10 October 2023, the PBI had submitted a formal charge sheet naming Abir and his 17-year-old friend as accused.
Owing to legal protections for minors, the identity of the second accused has been withheld, and his trial is currently being conducted separately in a juvenile court.
According to the case documents, Alina Islam Ayat went missing on 15 November 2022 from the city's Bandartila area while she was on her way to a mosque.
Following a general diary lodged by her father Sohel, the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) stepped in to probe the disappearance.
The law enforcement investigation exposed a gruesome plot.
Abir, a former tenant of the victim's family, had kidnapped the five-year-old with the intention of demanding a ransom. When his plan failed, he strangled the girl to death and chopped her body into six pieces.
The PBI's initial investigation recovered critical evidence, including CCTV camera footage that captured Abir carrying two bags used to dump the child's dismembered body parts across a city beach in Kattali, as well as local canals and the sea.
Investigators also collected blood swabs from a storage shed at Abir's house, which a subsequent DNA profiling report matched conclusively with Ayat's DNA, reinforcing the post-mortem findings.
