Rape, Murder of Santal Woman
3 get death, one life
A Rajshahi court yesterday sentenced three people to death and another person to life imprisonment and fined each Tk 1 lakh for raping and murdering a Santal woman in the district last year.
The body of Moriam Murmu, 48, wife of late Hopna Mardi, was found stripped of clothing, hanging by the neck from a tree some 100 yards off her Shimla Dighipara village residence in the district's Godagari upazila on July 10, 2011.
There were numerous bloody wounds on the body, indicating that she was tortured before being murdered. Her son, Wilson Mardi, filed a murder case with Godagari Police Station that day.
One of the death convicts, Andrias Murmu, (28) who is also Moriam's cousin, had an enmity with the indigenous woman, who was a teacher of a local school for adults, over a piece of land.
He hired the remaining three convicts, who are all locals, to steal from Moriam's house to financially cripple her.
Shawkat Iqbal (30) and Johan Marandi (30), sentenced to death, and Amar Kisku (19), sentenced to life, accepted Tk 10,000 each to carry out the crime.
But instead of only stealing, the four gang-raped and then strangulated the 48-year-old and hung the body from the tree to make it look like a suicide. They left after looting valuables and cash worth Tk 20,000 from the house.
For committing the robbery, the court jailed all four men for life and individually fined Andrias Tk 50,000, Shawkat Tk 20,000, Johan Tk 10,000 and Amar Tk 5,000.
Judge AKM Enamul Haque announced the verdict of the case held under the Woman and Children Repression Prevention Act 2000, said Public Prosecutor Sayeda Morjina Parveen.
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