HC confirms death sentences of five in Khulna father-daughter murder case
Bank official Parveen Sultana and her father Ilias Chowdhury were murdered in Lobonchora
Nearly nine years after the brutal killing of bank official Parveen Sultana and her father Ilias Chowdhury in Khulna, the High Court has confirmed the death sentences of five convicts in the murder case.
The court reduced their death sentences to life imprisonment in the separate gang rape and murder case related to Parveen.
A special High Court bench comprising Justice Bhishmadev Chakraborty and Justice KM Rasheduzzaman Raja delivered the verdict today (23 July).
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The five convicts are Md Liton, Saiful Islam Pitil, Abu Sayeed, Azizur Rahman alias Palash, and Shariful Alam.
In the murder case, filed under Section 396 of the Penal Code for murder committed during robbery, the court upheld the trial court's decision to award capital punishment to all five accused.
In the rape and murder case filed under Section 9(3) of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, the High Court altered the conviction under Section 9(1) and sentenced the convicts to life imprisonment instead.
Senior lawyer Mohammad Tajul Islam appeared for the complainant, assisted by advocates Syed Al Asafur Ali Raja, Md Nazimuddin and Mahmudul Islam.
Following the verdict, Tajul Islam said the victim's family felt some relief as the death sentences in the murder case had been maintained.
"Two people, a father and daughter, were brutally killed. The family can now feel that such a serious crime has not gone unpunished and that they have received a measure of justice through the court," he said.
He added that the family would decide whether to appeal for harsher punishment in the rape case after reviewing the full verdict and the court's observations.
The 2015 killings
The case documents state that the incident took place on the night of 18 September 2015 at Dhakaiya House in Boro Moulvir Dargah area of Lobonchora, Khulna.
The attackers entered the house and allegedly killed Parveen and her father Ilias Chowdhury by strangulation. Before the killings, Parveen was allegedly gang raped. The bodies were later found inside a septic tank.
The following day, Parveen's brother Rezaul Alam Chowdhury Biplob filed a murder case with Lobonchora Police Station.
During the investigation, police arrested Liton and Sayeed, who later gave confessional statements before the court.
A separate case over rape and murder was filed on 22 September under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act.
Long legal battle
The Khulna Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-3 in 2019 sentenced the five accused to death in both cases.
The death references for confirming the sentences and appeals filed by the convicts later reached the High Court.
However, the hearing faced legal complications as the two cases were filed under different laws, despite being based on the same incident.
After the chief justice's intervention, both cases were heard by the same special bench to avoid separate proceedings over identical evidence and circumstances.
Following lengthy hearings, the High Court delivered its final verdict today, upholding the death sentences in the murder case while reducing the punishment in the rape case.
