BDR Carnage Case
Hearing on charge framing starts
A Dhaka court yesterday started the hearing on charge framing against 850 members of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) for the February 25-26 carnage at the Pilkhana Headquarters in 2009.
Chief counsel for the carnage case Anisul Huq read out the First Information Report (FIR) before the court which fixed April 12 for completing the hearing and charge framing.
Metropolitan Sessions Judge of Dhaka Mohammad Zohurul Haque adjourned the proceedings till April 12 after defence counsels told the court that they are yet to get necessary documents on the 26 accused who were indicted in the supplementary charge sheets on March 21.
Earlier, the court took into cognisance the charges against the 26 accused after the Criminal Investigation Department indicted them after a fresh investigation following a court order on February 3.
With them, total number of the accused now stands at 850. The charges include murder, arson, looting, hiding of bodies and sedition.
The court witnessed a heated argument between the prosecution and the defence on whether the hearing on the charge framing could be started yesterday.
Defence lawyers argued that the 26 accused will not be able to defend them as some of them are yet to appoint lawyers and others did not get necessary documents.
Prosecutor of the case Mosharraf Hossain Kajol then said the court can start hearing on the charge framing as the defence counsels received all documents against earlier charge sheeted 824 accused.
Defence lawyers then said there is no scope to conduct a hasty trial of the case considering the number of accused. "If you continue the hearing, then question will come whether the trial is being held following the CrPC," told Aminul Haq, one of the defence counsels, to the court.
The court said since the case is under one sessions hearing, the charge framing has to be held at a time. At this point, a large number of lawyers present in the jam-packed court room started shouting saying 'shame', 'shame'.
The court then adjourned the proceedings for 15 minutes. After resuming the proceedings, it allowed only the chief prosecutor to read the FIR filed on 28 February in 2009 with the Lalbagh Police Station.
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