July 3, 2024
DHAKA – The delay in investigation and start of the trial of Sagar-Runi murder case “has been continuously ridiculing our criminal justice system and damaging it to an irreparable stage”, observed the High Court in the full text of a verdict.
Sagar Sarwar, who was the news editor at Maasranga Television, and his wife Meherun Runi, a senior reporter at ATN Bangla, were killed in the early hours of February 11, 2012, at their rented flat in the capital’s West Razabazar.
“The investigation into the Sagar-Runi murder case has not yet been completed even after 12 years and as such, its trial has not seen the light of day yet. Unfortunately, this case has been continuously ridiculing our criminal justice system and damaging it to an irreparable stage, which was remedied to some extent by the Bangabandhu murder case and the cases before the International Crime Tribunals,” the HC bench of Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice Md Bazlur Rahman said in the 65-page verdict released yesterday.
On May 13 this year, the HC bench delivered the verdict following a petition filed by three death-row convicts on August 31, 2021, challenging the legality of confining them to death cells before attaining the finality of their sentence.
In the full text of the verdict released yesterday, the HC directed the authorities concerned to start immediate arrangements for shifting the prisoners from death cells to ordinary prisons and complete the process within two years.