Dhaka (TIP): A Bangladeshi court on December 2 sentenced 13 people to death and 19 others to life imprisonment for lynching six students suspecting them of being robbers on the outskirts of the capital ten years ago.

“They will be hanged by neck until they are dead,” Dhaka 2nd Additional District and Sessions Judge Ismat Jahan ruled. The judge said those given the death penalty would have to pay Taka 20,000 each.

Nineteen others were given life in prison. They were also slapped with a fine of Tk10,000 each.

A total of 60 people had been accused of the killings. Names of three people were dropped from the charge sheet as they died during the trial.

Prosecution lawyers said 40 out of the 57 defendants were in jail and one was on bail while the rest were tried as fugitives. The judge acquitted 25 of them.

Seven friends, who were studying at different schools and colleges of Dhaka, took a trip to Amin Bazar Bridge under Savar police station on the outskirts of Dhaka on July 18, 2011, the night of Shab-e-Barat festival.

Six of them were brutally beaten to death by a group of local people who accused them of being robbers.

“We repeatedly told them we are students, not dacoits…All the six victims were my close friends and students of different colleges in Dhaka,” lone survivor Al-Amin, who is now 32, later told reporters.

Police had filed a case with Savar police station accusing at least 500 unidentified villagers over the incident.

Elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) was tasked to carry out the investigations in line with a High Court order. The RAB submitted a chargesheet mentioning 60 people in the case in January, 2013. PTI