The Jessore Jail authorities last night executed three convicts for killing Kazi Aref, one of the key organisers of the 1971 Liberation War and founding member of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, and four other JaSoD leaders around 17 years ago.
Two of the convicts – Safayet Hossain Habib and Anwar Hossain, both hailing from Kushtia’s Mirpur upazila – were hanged by the neck until death around 11pm amid tight security, jail officials said. Another convict, Rashedul Islam Jhantu, was executed at 11:45pm.
Five other death-row convicts are still at large while another died during the trial.
Aref’s wife Rowshon Jahan Sathi welcomed the executions but expressed frustration as the law enforcers had failed to arrest the fugitive convicts. “One of the convicts, Mannan Molla, is yet to be arrested though he has been involved in various crimes,” she told the Dhaka Tribune.
Aref, then Kushtia district unit president Lokman Hossain, general secretary Yakub Ali, and party leaders Israil Hossain and Shamsher Mandal were killed during an anti-terrorism rally on Kalidaspur Primary School ground on February 16, 1999.
A court in Kushtia sentenced 10 to death and 11 to life-term jail on August 30, 2004. The High Court acquitted one of the 10 death-row convicts but upheld the sentence of the remaining nine. It also acquitted the 11 convicts who were awarded life sentence by the lower court. The Appellate Division later upheld the High Court verdict.
