Cgt Bureau

A Chattogram court has sentenced a man to death and another to life in prison for killing a woman by strangulation in the port city in 2019.

Chattogram Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge Sirajam Munira delivered the verdict in the case on Thursday.

Nezam Uddin, 30, was the death row convict, while Abdul Halim, 45, received life in prison. The two were convicted as the charges against them were proven, according to the court’s bench clerk Omar Fuad.

Nezam gave a confessional statement to the court under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, he said.

In addition to their sentences, both convicts were fined Tk 20,000 by the court. A failure to pay the fine will result in six months in jail for each of them.

A third suspect in the case – 29-year-old Abu Siddique Rubel – was acquitted.

Nezam was in court when the verdict was delivered and was subsequently sent to prison. But Halim is absconding.

Nezam hails from Chattogram’s Rangunia and had been a resident of North Agrabad’s Muhuri Para in the Double Mooring Thana area.

Halim is a native of Bhola’s Charfesson, while the acquitted Rubel hailed from Mirdapara in Chattogram’s Bayezid Bostami Thana area.

On May 13, 2019, a police team was sent to an apartment in the Mirdapara area due to an unusual stench. Police entered the apartment and found the body of 30-year-old Rebecca Sultana Moni lying on the floor.

The body had been decomposing for some time.

Five months before the incident, Moni had rented the house with another woman, who she had identified as her younger sister, and Halim, who she had identified as her brother-in-law Abdul Majid.

Sub-Inspector Md Rezaul Islam filed a case against unknown suspects at the Bayezid Bostami Police Station after the body was discovered.

According to the case dossier, Halim had rented the flat for several women who he was prostituting out.

Nezam, a furniture store worker, would regularly go to the apartment as he was acquainted with Halim.

The case documents say that three women had initially been staying at the flat, but two of them left because Halim was keeping all the money from their sex work. After that, only Moni remained at the apartment.

When Moni asked for Tk 150,000 for her sister’s wedding, Halim became enraged and planned Moni’s killing. He then asked Nezam for his help.

Nezam confessed that he went to the house on May 11, 2019, when Moni was alone. He slapped her to the floor and began to strangle her. When blood started pouring out of her mouth, Nezam let go. When Moni tried to scream, Nezam wrapped her shawl around her neck and killed her. He then fled the scene.

Nezam took Moni’s mobile phone when he left. A week after the body was recovered, police tracked down the phone, arrested Nezam, and learnt about the details of the murder.

Chattogram Fourth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge Shariful Alam Bhuiyan indicted the three suspects in 2020.

The indictment said that Nezam had strangled Moni to death under the orders of Halim. The court ordered Rubel to be added to the list of suspects because he came to know about the incident, but did not inform anyone.

The court reached its verdict after hearing the testimony of 11 witnesses.