DHAKA: A Dhaka court Sunday sentenced five students of Jahangirnagar University (JU) to death and six others to lifetime imprisonment for killing another student Zubair Ahmed.

Judge Nizamul Haq of Dhaka’s Speedy Trial Tribunal-4 handed down the verdict after police produced the accused before the court amid haral, blockade in the morning.

The court also acquitted two accused in the case.

The verdict came some three years after Zubair, a 37th batch student at Department of English of JU, was brutally killed on January 2012. He was a resident student of Bangabandhu Sheikh Majibur Rahman Hall of JU.

The death penalty recipients are Khandakar Ashiqul Islam Ashique, Rashedul Islam Razu, Khan M Roich alias Sohan, Zahid Hassan, and Mahbub Akram.

The lifetime imprisonment convicts are Istiaque Mehbub Arup, Nazmus Shakib Tapu, Mazahrul Islam, Kamruzzaman Sohag, Shafiul Alam Setu, and Abhinandan Kundu Ovi. In addition, they were also fined Tk 20,000 by the court.

However, the court acquitted M Nazmul Hussian Plaban and M Mahmudul Hasan Masud as allegations brought against them was not proved.

All the convicted killers and the acquitted, including the slain student, were the students at JU.

Among the 13 students – 11 convicts and 2 acquitted-- seven are behind bar and six are fugitive now. On January 28 this year, the court finished its trial proceedings in the case.

Earlier, of the convicts, Ashiqul Islam Ashique, Khan M Roich alias Sohan, Istiaque Mehbub Arup, and Mahbub Akram fled the court dock on 23 February 2014.

On January 8, 2012, BCL rivals beat up Zubair with iron rods on his way back from attending his honors final year examinations, leaving him critically injured.

Seriously injured Zubair was rushed to Enam Medical College and Hospital in Savar, outskirt of the city, and shifted to the city’s United Hospital at night as the condition deteriorated. Following the day, Zubair succumbed to his inquiries there.

Zubair was son of Tofail Ahmed of Madinabag Nablapara village under Kalapara upazila of Patuakhali district.

Later, the then-JU deputy registrar, Hamidur Rahman, filed the murder case with Ashulia Thana on the day Zubair died.

Ashulia Thana Sub-Inspector Mir Shahin Shah Parvez, investigation officer (IO) of the case, submitted the charge sheet to Dhaka’s Chief Judicial Magistrate Court on April 3, 2012.

Of the convicts, Najmus Sakib Topu and Mahabub Akram gave confessional statements before the courts.

After recording deposition of 27 out of 37 witnesses, who were listed in the charge sheet, the court framed charges against all the 13 accused on September 8, 2013, and delivered verdict on February 8.

BDST: 1315 HRS, FEB 08, 2015