Dhaka, Jun 20 : Ten militants of a banned Bangladeshi Islamist outfit were sentenced to death today by a fast-track court here after they were found guilty of involvement in a deadly suicide bombing in 2005 that claimed eight lives.
The court handed down death penalty to 10 operatives of the banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for the 2005 suicide bomb attack that killed eight people, including lawyers, at suburban Gazipur. “The convicts will be hanged to death,” Judge Mohammad Motahar Hossain of Dhaka's Speedy Trial Tribunal said while announcing the verdict in a crowded courtroom.
The verdict was announced in the presence of the militants who appeared in court under heavy security. Eight people were killed and 80 others were injured in the blast that occurred at one of the lawyers' room in Gazipur Bar Association office on November 29 in 2005. The JMB men who carried out the blast also died in the incident.
The sentence will be executed after the approval of the High Court, the judge said.
On the day of the bombing, one of the JMB activists, wearing a lawyers' gown, blew himself up at the Gazipur Bar Association office.