The court has set Tuesday as the date for the verdict in the case over the murder of 8-year-old Ira Moni in the remote hill area of Chattogram’s Sitakunda.
Judge Jannatul Ferdous of the Chattogram Women and Child Repression Prevention Tribunal set the date for the verdict after hearing closing arguments on Thursday.
The verdict in the widely discussed child murder case is set to be delivered four months after the crime. It has taken 10 working days from the start of the trial for it to reach the verdict stage.
The only accused in the case, 45-year-old Babu Sheikh, testified in court on Jun 30. Previously, 16 witnesses were heard over the course of working days.
“The court has set Tuesday as the date for the verdict after it finished hearing arguments on Thursday,” tribunal bench assistant Abbas Hossain told bdnews24.com.
The deceased Jannatul Nesa, aka Ira Moni, was born in Sitakunda's Chhota Kumira Master Para. Her father, Monirul Islam, is a three-wheeler driver by trade. Ira was a student in second grade at a local primary school.
After Ira's death, police arrested Babu, 45, from the Kumira area of Sitakunda Upazila on Mar 3.
Babu hails from Gobindaganj Thana in Gaibandha. He lived in a house next to Ira Moni’s family.
Chattogram District Superintendent of Police Mohammad Nazir Ahmed Khan had said in a press conference that Babu planned to kill Ira due to a dispute with her father, Monirul. As part of the plan, he lured the child to the hills of Sitakunda, first “attempting to rape” her and then slitting her throat.
On the morning of Mar 1, Babu allegedly took Ira Moni out of the house, promising to buy her chocolates and go for a walk. Later, they took a bus from Kumira to Sitakunda. From there, they walked to the hills in the Botanical Garden area.
On the day of the incident, workers engaged in road repair work on the hills found Ira Moni with her throat slit. The wounded child had reached the workers on foot from the forest.
The workers then rushed the child to the local Upazila health complex. From there, she was sent to Chittagong Medical College Hospital. After undergoing treatment there for two days, Ira Moni died on Mar 3.
Police said, citing Babu's interrogation, said that the arrestee took the child to the hills and tried to rape her. When she said she would tell people about the incident, Babu slit her throat with a knife and left.
Ira Moni’s mother filed a case over the incident. Police submitted a charge sheet to the court on Jun 11. The court indicted Babu on Jun 18 and started recording testimony on Jun 21.