The High Court has given a Dhaka court six months to dispose of the case filed for the attempted murder of Dhaka University Professor and writer Humayun Azad.
The HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Mohammad Ullah passed the order on Thursday afternoon while hearing the bail plea of an individual accused in the case, Minhazur Rahman Minhaz.
The court also ordered the prosecution to produce the witnesses in the case before the trial court for the placing of their statements. Minhaz, who gave a confessional statement before the trial court, filed the bail petition in 2011.
The case has since remained pending with a Dhaka court.
On February 27, 2004, miscreants attacked Humayun Azad, stabbing him as he attempted to hail a rickshaw home from Ekushey Boi Mela on the Bangla Academy premises.
After undergoing a series of treatments, he died of cardiac arrest during a visit to Munich, Germany on August 12, 2004.
Mohammad Lutfor Rahman, an inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department of police, submitted two charge sheets to a Dhaka court, claiming that the attack had ultimately caused Azad’s death.
On September 10, 2012, nearly eight years after Azad’s death, charges were framed against five Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) activists , including Minhaz.
The other accused are JMB leaders Shaekh Abdur Rahman and Ataur Rahman Sunny, Nur Mohammad Babu and Anwar Alam.
Of them, Abdur Rahman and Sunny have already been executed for killing two judges in Jhalakathi. The other three accused are now in jail.