Published : 27 Feb 2025, 02:52 PM
A court has sentenced a man named Maruf Hasan Badhan to death by hanging for the 2019 rape and murder of his lover inside an abandoned train carriage at Dhaka’s Kamalapur Railway Station.
In the verdict’s observations, the judge wrote: “If those who violate our trust are not punished, it will send a negative message to society.”
Muhammad Shamsul Islam of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal issued the verdict in the case on Thursday.
Moin Islam, bench assistant at the court, said that Badhan was brought to court from jail and the judge began reading the verdict in his presence.
After reading the verdict for about a quarter of an hour, the judge announced the death sentence.
After the verdict, Badhan was sent to jail with a warrant of execution.
The judge observed in the verdict: "The girl, trusting her lover, took his hand and ran away from home. Disrespecting that trust, he brought her to Dhaka, raped her and then killed her. He deserves the maximum punishment for this heinous crime."
According to the case documents, the young woman ran away from Panchagarh to Dhaka with Badhan on Aug 18, 2019 after the two formed a romantic relationship. Unable to find a residential hotel, they stayed at Kamalapur Railway Station.
At one point, Badhan took her to an abandoned compartment of the Balaka train. There, he raped her. When the young woman screamed, Badhan strangled her to death with a veil.
He then returned to Panchagarh. On the morning of Aug 19, railway workers found the body in the train compartment. Later, the police confirmed her identity after retrieving a birth certificate from a bag she was carrying and then contacting her father.
The girl's uncle filed a case at the Dhaka Railway Police Station over the incident. The police arrested Badhan from Panchagarh on Aug 23. After an investigation, a charge sheet was filed against him.
The court eventually found Badhan guilty on Thursday after hearing the testimonies of 14 people.