The High Court has directed the trial court concerned to finish the trial of the 32-year-old Seema murder case within three months.
Against the backdrop of a newspaper report, the High Court bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Mostafizur Rahman issued the voluntary (suo moto) order on Wednesday.
Supreme Court lawyer Advocate Ishrat Hasan placed the newspaper report before the court for necessary directives.
The court asked the judge of the Dhaka Public Safety Violation Offence Prevention Tribunal to finish the trial proceedings of the case within three months, and to submit a report on it before the court.
The court also asked the law ministry to take departmental action against the judge concerned if she did not finish the trial within the allotted time.
On October 6, the Bangla national daily Jugantor published a report under the headline: “32 year- old Seema murder case awaits trial.”
According to the report, Seema Mohammadi was stabbed dead by Mohammad Ahmad alias Amin, 20, at her home at Jagannath Saha Road of old Dhaka on April 26, 1988. Two months after the incident, police submitted the charge sheet in the case, stating that Amin stabbed Seema because she had rejected his offer for marriage with her. Anwar Hossain, the then lecturer of the forensic department of the Dhaka Medical College, failed to appear before the court even though he was issued many witness appearance warrants. Till now, the case has appeared in the cause list 112 times under 11 different judges.
Police were not interested in arresting the sole accused Amin, the report said.
According to the report, the charge sheet claimed that the accused Amin rented a room at Urdu Road two months before the incident. But after the murder he never went back there.
