Bangladesh delivers first verdict awarding death penalty for rape

Online desk

A Tangail court on Thursday sentenced five people to death in a case filed over the gang-rape of a madrasa girl in Bhuiyanpur upazila.

The condemned convicts are Sagar Chandra, Sujon Moni Rishi, Rajon, Sanjit and Gopi Chandra Shil.

Of them, the former three were tried in absentia while the latter two were present in the dock when the judge pronounced the verdict.

Judge of the Tangail Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal Khaleda Yasmin delivered the verdict in the morning.

This is the first verdict in the country after the amendment to the law incorporating the highest punishment for rape where rape accused were awarded death penalty.

Bangladesh on Tuesday introduced the death penalty for rape amid growing demand for highest punishment to the rapists following high level of sexual violence against women.

President Abdul Hamid promulgated the Children Repression Prevention (Amendment) Ordinance directly making it into law.

The move to amend the law came amid the growing demand for capital punishment for rapists from different quarters following a spate of rape incidents in the country.

The gang-rape of a young woman after confining her husband to an MC College dormitory in Sylhet and the brutal gang assault on a woman after being stripped in Noakhali triggered angry protests across the country.

Protesters galvanised by the two incidents demanded that the highest punishment for rape be death sentence.