The trial of much-talked-about killing of six students at Aminbazar, on the outskirts of the capital in 2011, has been sluggish due to non-appearance of prosecution witnesses.
Earlier, the case proceedings had been stalled for more than a year since the Savar police had taken the time to file a report on the death of an accused in the case.
Even though the report was submitted in November last year, the Second Additional District and Sessions Judge’s Court in Dhaka deferred the proceedings on several occasions as the prosecution had failed to produce the witnesses before it.
The court on July 8, 2013 indicted 60 people of Bardeshi village in Aminbazar while the trial began with the deposition of the complainant, then sub-inspector Anwar Hossain of Savar police, on October 30, 2013.
There are 91 other prosecution witnesses to testify at the court.
On the night of Shab-e-Barat of July 18, 2011, a gang killed the six students near Aminbazar bridge, and took the bodies to Keblarchar, located more than half a kilometre away, on the advice of police. They called villagers saying that robbers had been caught.
The villagers then beat up the teenagers, and this was how the murders were labelled by the accused as an incident of mob beating.
SI Anwar filed the murder case with Savar police accusing 500-600 unidentified villagers.
Admitting slow progress of the case, additional public prosecutor Shakila Jasmine Mitu told the Dhaka Tribune that the court could not continue recording deposition of witnesses on many scheduled dates due to delay in submission of the police report.
“The depositions resumed recently but the witnesses could not be produced before the court because of the ongoing blockade and hartal,” she added.
Latest, the court earlier this month had to defer the proceedings as the second witness did not appear before it.
Following the death of accused Rashad Miah on January 1 last year at his house, the court directed the Savar police to submit a report before it mentioning the reason behind his death. Sources say the accused died of a heart attack.
Of the 60 accused, 14 gave confessional statements before magistrates on different dates. Forty six accused are now on bail, four in jail custody and nine accused are on the run.
On January 13, 2013, Sharif Uddin Ahmed, an additional superintendent of RAB, also the investigation officer of the case, submitted the charge sheet before the court.
The dead students are Tipu Sultan of Tejgaon College, Towhidur Rahman Palash, Kamruzzaman Kanto and Ibrahim Khalil of Mirpur Bangla College, Shams Rahim Shamam of Maple Leaf International School and Sitaf Jabi Munif of Bangladesh University of Business and Technology. Their friend Al Amin, who was with them at that time and sustained severe injuries, is the lone survivor of the incident.