They include a former Awami League member Nur Hossain and 3 ex-officers of the Rapid Action Battalion

The Bangladesh High Court on Tuesday upheld death sentences of 15 convicts — including a former Awami League member and three former officers of the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) — in a case relating to the abduction and murder of seven persons in Narayanganj, on the outskirts of Dhaka, three years ago.

The abduction and gruesome killing in 2014 of seven people, including City Corporation Councillor Nazrul Islam and senior lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar, had shocked the nation.

Nur Hossain, a former member of the ruling Awami League party and Lt. Col. Tareque Sayeed Mohammad, the then commanding officer of RAB-11, are among those awarded the capital punishment. The High Court also commuted the death penalties awarded to 11 others to life imprisonment.

On January 16 this year, a local court had found 35 people, including Hossain and 25 former RAB officials, guilty of the charges. Of them, 26 were sentenced to death and nine others to imprisonment.

According to a chargesheet, Hossain had some enmity with Nazrul Islam over issues relating to the city corporation and paid the local RAB officers for the abduction and murder. He later fled to Kolkata but was caught and sent back by West Bengal police.