Former Motijheel police station officer-in-charge AKM Rafiqul Islam, sentenced to death for the 2005 killing of a college student, died at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital last night.
He was taken to the hospital earlier in the evening after he had fallen ill at the Dhaka Central Jail, where he had been staying.
Rafiqul died around 11pm, confirmed Inspector Mojammel Haque of the DMCH police outpost. But the inspector could not immediately confirm the cause of death or the kind of illness.
Rafiqul and two others were handed down the sentence in 2011 by a speedy trial tribunal for killing Kamrul Islam Momin, a student of the Dhaka Commerce College.
Momin, 22, was shot dead near his residence in the capital city’s Ibrahimpur area on September 13, 2005.
According to the statement of the case filed with Dhaka’s Kafrul police station, Rafiqul and his cohorts killed Momin over a family dispute centring the ownership and posession of land.
Six others were given life-term jail sentence in the same case. They, along with the two others on death row were hired by Rafiqul for the murder.
However, it could not be known until filing of this report whether Rafiqul had appealed against his verdict with a higher court.