The Dhaka Metropolitan Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal is set to deliver its verdict today in the case over the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in the capital’s Pallabi area on May 19.

Judge Masrur Salekin of the tribunal fixed the date on June 4 after concluding the hearing of the case.

A couple, Sohel Rana and his wife Swapna Akter, who are neighbours of the victim, have been accused in the case. Sohel is charged with rape and murder, while Swapna is accused of aiding and abetting her husband in committing the crime and helping him flee the scene.

Both accused are currently in jail.

The victim’s father, the plaintiff in the case, while addressing a roundtable organised by the Legal and Health Assistance Cell for Oppressed Women and Children at a convention centre in Dhaka on Saturday, criticised the persistent failure of successive legal frameworks to protect vulnerable citizens.

He said that citizens must actively contribute to community safety and rejected the notion that ensuring public security was solely the government’s responsibility.

He stressed the need for a social environment in which children and parents would not have to endure the suffering his family experienced.

During the closing arguments on June 4, special public prosecutor Azizur Rahman Dulu, who is handling the case, sought the death penalty for both Sohel and Swapna.

The state-appointed defence counsel for the accused couple, Musa Kalimullah, on the other hand, sought life imprisonment instead of capital punishment for the accused.

While defending themselves before the tribunal on June 3, Sohel begged the court for pardon, while Swapna denied the charges against her.

The tribunal on June 2, a day after framing charges against the couple, completed recording the testimonies of 16 prosecution witnesses.

The police submitted the charge sheet against the couple on May 24.

The dismembered body of the eight-year-old girl was recovered from Sohel’s apartment in Pallabi on May 19.

Sohel allegedly fled the scene by breaking the grill of the apartment’s toilet window. His wife, however, was detained at the scene, and he was arrested later that evening in Narayanganj.

The day after the killing, the child’s father filed a case with Pallabi Police Station against Sohel, his wife and an unidentified person.

On May 20, Sohel gave a confessional statement before a Dhaka court.

The rape and murder of the child sparked widespread protests and condemnation across the country, with demonstrators demanding a speedy trial and exemplary punishment for those responsible.