HC upholds death for five, life-term for six

The High Court (HC) has upheld death sentences for five students convicted by a trial court in the 2012 murder of Zubair Ahmed, a student of Jahangirnagar University (JU), report agencies.

The final-year student was killed in an attack on January 8 that year on the campus.

In 2015, the trial court sentenced five people to death and six others to life in prison- all of them activists of the university unit of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL),

On Wednesday, the court upheld life imprisonment for two convicts and acquitted four others.

The convicts awarded with capital punishment are Ashiqul Islam Ashique, Khan Mohammed Royees, and Zahid Hassan, Rashedul Islam Razu and Mahbub Akram. All of them, except Razu, are on the run. His appeal challenging the trial court's decision has been turned down.

The HC upheld life imprisonment for Nazmus Sakib Tapu, a student of Molecular Biology department and Ishtiak Mehbub Arup, a student of Philosophy department. Four others --Statistics department's Shafiul Alam Shetu and Avinandan Kundu, philosophy student Kamruzzaman Shohag and History department's Mazharul Islam have been acquitted.

All of them, except Arup, remain in jail.

Zubair, an English department student, was an activist of the BCL. He was hacked to death in an attack on the campus over an internal feud on January 8, 2012.