The High Court on Sunday admitted for hearing the jail appeals filed by death-row convicts Sohel Rana and his wife Shopna Khatun in the case of killing a girl child after rape in the capital’s Pallabi area on May 19.

The court also ordered that the appeals be heard together with the pending death reference.

The bench of Justice Mohammad Ali and Justice Md Saiful Islam passed the order after hearing attorney general Md Ruhul Quddus Kazal.

The trial court, the Dhaka Metropolitan Violence against Children Prevention Tribunal, on June 7 sentenced the couple to death in the case.

On June 11, the convicts filed the appeals through the jail authorities as they could not afford lawyers to represent them.

Supreme Court registrar general Mohammad Habibur Rahman Siddique said that the death reference and jail appeals would now be sent to the Government Press for preparation of paper books before the case is made ready for final hearing.

Under the rules, the convicts will have seven days to file regular appeals through lawyers.

The regular appeals, jail appeals and death reference will be heard together.

Meanwhile, the attorney general requested the dedicated High Court bench of Justice Bhishmadev Chakrabortty and Justice KM Rasheduzzaman Raja to take up the death reference and jail appeal of Hitu Sheikh in the 2025 Magura child rape and murder case on a priority basis.

The case was listed as serial number 20 on the day’s cause list.

On May 17, the Magura Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal sentenced Hitu Sheikh to death for the rape and subsequent murder of an eight-year-old girl. Three other accused were acquitted.

According to the prosecution, the girl was raped on March 6 while visiting the house of her elder sister. The prime accused, Hitu Sheikh, was the father-in-law of the girl’s sister. The child succumbed to her injuries on March 13.

The dedicated bench informed the attorney general that it intended to hear death reference cases serially, noting that many pending cases, even of 2019, had reached the court.

The bench, which began functioning on Sunday, also partly heard two death references — one involving Md Abdullah in a rape and murder case in Uttara Paschim, Dhaka, and another involving Subir Kumar Roy and Dr Shushil Kumar Roy in a rape and murder case in Sirajganj.

The related jail appeals of the convicts are also being heard together with the respective death references.