The High Court (HC) acquitted four people convicted by a lower court in a case for their negligence causing death of ill-fated child Jihad, who died falling into an abandoned deep shaft in capital’s Shahjahanpur area in 2014.
An HC bench comprising Justice Md Ruhul Quddus and Justice ASM Abdul Mobin passed the order on Wednesday (Feb 12) after hearing the appeals filed by the convicts.
Dhaka 5th Special Judge Court on Feb 26, 2017, sentenced Bangladesh Railway’s senior deputy assistant engineer Jahangir Alam, assistant engineer Nasir Uddin and electric engineer Jafar Ahmed Shaki in the case. Another convict is Engineer Abdus Salam, owner of JSR, company that was assigned to close that abandoned shaft. All of the convicts had been sentenced to 10-year rigorous imprisonment each.
Jihad, 4, fell into the open shaft while playing near his Shahjahanpur house on Dec 26, 2014. His body was pulled out from the abandoned shaft 23 hours after he had slipped into it.
On Feb 26, 2017, a Dhaka court pronounced 10 years imprisonment and fined Tk2 lakh each for four accused. Two others accused in the case were acquitted by the lower court.
The death occurred due to negligence of their duties of the accused, then the lower court also observed.