STATE Vs. DAFADER MARFOTH ALI SHAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I have gone through the separate judgments prepared by Surendra Kumar Sinha, J. and Nazmun Ara Sultana, J. I agree with the reasoning and findings given by Nazmun Ara Sultana, J. Surendra Kumar Sinha, J: I have had the privilege of reading the draft copy of the judgment prepared by my learned sister Nazmun Ara Sultana, J. While I fully endorse her view that 'the accused persons made a conspiracy to kill the four Awami League leaders inside the jail and in pursuance of that conspiracy accused Risalder Muslem Uddin, the present accused respondents Dafader Marfoth Ali Shah and L.S. (Dafader) Abul Hashem Mridha along with two other army personnel' perpetrated the killing in the Dhaka Central Jail on the night following 2nd November, 1975 at around 4 a.m, I am however, unable to endorse her opinion in the operating part of the judgment restoring the respondents conviction passed by the trial court under sections 302/34 of the penal code and her findings that 'The trial Court, therefore, rightly convicted' the respondents. I also fully agree with my learned sister with her concluding opinion that the High Court Division erred in law in acquitting respondents. Since my learned sister has extensively discussed the evidence on record, I will discuss the evidence shortly which are necessary in support of my opinion. A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and usually deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Incarceration in prison is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the Courts for the commission of a crime. Other terms used as penitentiary, correctional facility, remand centre, detention centre, and a gaol or jail. A prison system is the organizational arrangement of the provision and operation of prisons. A prison may also sometimes be used as a tool of political repression to detain political prisoners, prisoners of conscience and enemies of the state, particularly by authoritarian regimes. In times of war or conflict, prisoners of war may also be detained in prisons. The use of capital punishment began to decline in the late 18th century, the prisons are increasingly used by courts as a place of punishment, eventually becoming the chief means of punishing serious offenders. The concept of the prison as a penitentiary (as a place of punishment and personal reform) was advocated by the English jurist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham, among others. Confinement of criminals came to be viewed as an ideal, because it was thought that solitude would help the offender to become penitent and that penitence would result in rehabilitation.