The High Court has commuted the sentences of seven convicts who were previously awarded the death penalty in the high-profile Ramna Batamul bombing case.
The attack took place during the Pahela Baishakh celebrations organised by Chhayanaut at Ramna Batamul in Dhaka on 14 April 2001, and was widely condemned as an assault on Bangladesh’s secular cultural traditions.
Nine people were killed on the spot, and another later died in hospital.
The blast, orchestrated by members of the banned militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI), was intended to instil fear and disrupt the country’s cultural celebrations.
Following a lengthy investigation, the Criminal Investigation Department submitted charge sheets in 2008, accusing 14 individuals.
In 2014, a Dhaka court delivered its verdict in the murder case, sentencing eight of the accused to death and six others to life imprisonment.
In its latest ruling, the High Court commuted the sentence of Md Tajuddin, one of the eight originally sentenced to death, to life imprisonment.
Tajuddin is the brother of former Deputy Minister Abdus Salam Pintu, who was himself convicted in a separate case involving a grenade attack.
The remaining six convicts, also previously sentenced to death, had their sentences reduced to 10 years’ imprisonment each.
Their names include Akbar Hossain, Arif Hasan, Hafiz Jahangir Alam Badr, Abu Bakar alias Hafiz Selim Howlader, Abdul Hai, and Shafiqul Rahman.
The verdict was announced on Tuesday by a High Court bench comprising Justice Mostafa Zaman Islam and Justice Nasrin Akter, following hearings on the death references and appeals. The court began delivering the judgment on 8 May and set 13 May for completing the remaining parts of the ruling.
Among the original death row convicts, Mufti Abdul Hannan, the chief of HuJI, had already been executed in 2017 for his involvement in the Sylhet grenade attack targeting British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury.
The High Court declared his appeal process concluded, as he is no longer alive.
Regarding those previously sentenced to life imprisonment, the High Court upheld the sentence of Shahadatullah Jewel. However, the sentences of three others were reduced to 10 years’ imprisonment each.
The appeals of two convicts were dismissed as concluded due to their deaths during the trial process.
The ruling marks a significant turn in one of Bangladesh’s landmark cases involving religious extremism and terrorism.
The explosives case filed in connection with the same incident is still pending before the Dhaka Speedy Trial Tribunal-1.