The High Court yesterday asked both the state and defence counsels to finish placing their arguments in the BDR carnage case by February 28, as it has already completed majority of the proceedings.
After concluding the hearing proceedings, the HC will fix a date for delivering verdict in the biggest ever criminal case in the country's history in terms of the number of accused and convicts, or may keep the case waiting for a verdict, Deputy Attorney General AKM Zahid Sarwar Kazal told The Daily Star yesterday.
The HC has so far held hearing of the appeals and death reference of the case for 356 days, he also said.
The death reference and the appeals were filed with the HC months after a Dhaka court announced the verdict on November 5, 2013, nearly five years after the bloody mutiny at BDR headquarters in Pilkhana.
The trial court gave death sentences to 150 soldiers of the erstwhile Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) and two civilians, and jailed 160 others for life for their roles and involvement in the carnage.
It also handed down rigorous imprisonment, ranging from three to 10 years, to 256 people, mostly BDR soldiers. The court acquitted the remaining 277 accused, but the government later appealed against the acquittal of 69 of them. A total of 846 people, 823 of them BDR personnel, stood trial in the carnage case.
Seventy-four people, including 57 army officials, were massacred during the BDR mutiny on February 25-26, 2009 at the Pilkhana headquarters of the paramilitary force, renamed Border Guard Bangladesh.
The special HC bench comprising Justice Md Shawkat Hossain, Justice Md Abu Zafor Siddique, and Justice Nazrul Islam Talukder started hearing the death reference and 255 appeals in January 2015.
Meanwhile, 17,306 BDR jawans are facing trial in 11 special BDR courts and 60 summary trial courts for mutiny. At least 78 accused jawans, both in the carnage and mutiny cases, died under mysterious circumstances after the mutiny. Many of them reportedly died of heart attack in police custody while a few others committed suicide.