By Ferdous Ahmad Bhuiyan
DHAKA, Bangladesh
A Bangladesh court has sentenced eight members of an outlawed militant group to death in a high-profile case about the bombing of Bengali New Year's celebrations in 2001.
The outlawed Islamist militant organization Harkat-ul-Jihad's head Mufti Abdul Hannan was among those sentenced to death -- six others were given life imprisonment -- for the 2001 blast which killed 10 people.
Ruhil Amin, the judge at the Dhaka Judge's court, also sentenced to death Maulana Akbar Hossain, Maulana Tajuddin, Arif Hossain Suman, Hafej Jahangir Alam, Mufti Abdul Hai, Mufti Shafiqur Rahman and Maulana Abu Bakar. All but Hossain, Suman and Hannan were tried in absentia.
Additional police forces were deployed in and around the court while the verdict was being announced.
During the traditional Bengali New Year celebrations on April 14 of 2001, several bomb blasts at a cultural function in the central "Ramna Batamul" park killed 10 people and injured approximately 50.
The court recorded the statement of around 60 prosecution witnesses after the Criminal Investigations Department pressed charges in 2008.
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