Law minister Anisul Huq and home affairs minister Asaduzzaman Khan on Monday said that the rule of law was upheld though the verdict sentencing 26 people including 16 former Rapid Action Battalion members to death in the Narayanganj seven-murder case.
The home minister said that a ‘group of derailed officers’ of the elite force committed the sensational crime on their own and so the battalion, as an institution, was in no way responsible for it.
‘All of these officers were derailed and they committed the crime on their own decision…Why should RAB take the responsibility for the crimes committed by them?’ Asaduzzaman told reporters at the ministry.
The conviction of the battalion officials proved that no one was beyond the law and the government would not spare anyone involved in crimes, he said.
He said the battalion helped conduct a proper investigation into the murders that stunned all.
Narayanganj District and Sessions Judge’s Court pronounced the verdict Monday morning convicting the 35 accused, including 25 from the battalion. The main accused former Awami League leader Noor Hossain and then RAB-11 commander Tarek Sayeed Mohammad were also sentenced to death for the murder of seven people in Narayanganj in 2014. Nine others were sentenced for different terms.
Ruling Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader, also the road transports and bridges minister, said that the verdict proved that people of the country got justice.
‘The verdict indicates that no one, whoever involved in crimes, would be spared,’ Obaidul Quader said after attending a function in the city.
He said that the government wanted to bring an end to the culture of impunity and indemnity.
‘I think this is an accurate judgement…The court passed the verdict as it found adequate evidences of cruelty of the crime,’ law minister Anisul Huq said at the ministry in an instant reaction to the verdict.
He said it was the responsibility of the state to bring the offenders to justice and it had been carried out.
Echoing the law minister, Asaduzzaman said that the rule of law was upheld through the judgement.
About the absconding convicts, he said they would also be brought to justice as the law enforcers were looking for them.
Seven people, including Narayanganj City Corporation panel mayor Nazrul Islam and senior lawyer Chandan Sarker, were abducted from the Dhaka-Narayanganj link road on April 27, 2014. Later, their bodies were found floating in the Sitalakhya.
The law minister said he believed that the panic created in the people’s mind following the grisly murders in Narayanganj would now go after the verdict.