HC endorses death penalty of 3 Army officers, 12 others

DHAKA: Bangladesh's high court upheld a trial court verdict sentencing to death 15 people, including three army officers and a gangster, who had fled to India after the killing of seven people three years ago. The abducting and killing of seven people, including councillor Nazrul Islam and lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar, in Narayanganj shocked the nation. "The court upheld the death sentences of 15 and commuted death penalties of 11 others to life imprisonment while the trial court had handed down death penalties to 26 accused," a spokesman of the attorney general's said. Death penalty was awarded to two sacked military and a navy officers, a gangster and 11 ex-servicemen posted in elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).