Extreme punishments, especially the death penalty, have historically been rarely applied to women
By: Desk || Date: 18 Oct 20
Interest and fear regarding the death penalty remain high among people. In Bangladesh, the highest punishment for serious crimes under the law is the death penalty. However, surprisingly, no female criminal has ever been executed in the country. Today, I will provide detailed information on this issue.
Bangladesh became independent in 1971. Since then, courts—both lower and higher—have issued death sentences to numerous convicts for various crimes. According to data from 2017, 448 death sentences have been carried out in Bangladesh so far. The most recent execution took place on April 12, 2020, when Captain (Dismissed) Abdul Majed, the self-confessed assassin of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and a death row convict, was executed. It has been observed that all those executed since independence have been men.
There has been no woman executed—yes, you heard that correctly. In Bangladesh’s history, no female convict has ever been put to death. A report titled “No Woman Executed in Bangladesh” was published in Kaler Kantho, highlighting this fact.
Interestingly, since independence, although death sentences have been handed down to over a hundred women, none of them have been executed. Many were released after serving long prison terms, some died in prison, and some had their sentences reduced on appeal. Currently, several female convicts remain in death row cells while their appeals are pending in the courts.
According to the law, a death row convict can petition the President for clemency as a final opportunity. If the President rejects the petition, there is no chance of escaping execution. However, to date, no female convict has ever submitted a petition for clemency to the President, according to reports. A senior prison official told Kaler Kantho, “To my knowledge, no female death row convict has gone up to the President for mercy. Most of their case documents are still stuck in the appellate division of the court.”
In 2007, the only women’s prison in Kashimpur was inaugurated. Although gallows exist in every prison in the country, there is no execution stage in the women’s prison. When asked about this during the inauguration, former IG Prisons Brigadier General Zakir Hasan explained that since there has never been a record of a female execution, no gallows stage was built.
According to Janakantha (2018), prison sources say that whenever a death sentence for a woman reaches the Supreme Court’s appellate division, it is often reduced to life imprisonment, saving her from execution. For example, Estema Khatun Minu, convicted in the murder of industrialist Latifur Rahman’s daughter Shajnin, had her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court. Before this, in a similar case involving the murder of a father and mother by their daughter Aishi, the death sentence was also commuted to life imprisonment.
Currently, out of 38 female convicts sentenced to death, 15 are in Kashimpur Women’s Prison, 9 in the Chattogram division, 1 in Sylhet, 3 in Rangpur, 7 in Khulna, 2 in Barishal, and 1 in Mymensingh. These women have been in death row cells since their sentences were passed by lower courts. Many have filed appeals in higher courts, while some could not appeal due to various limitations.
A central prison official said that in prisons across the country, thousands of death row convicts—including politicians, military and civilian officials, lawyers, and doctors—are held, and many have already been executed. In the case of women, when a lower court issues a death sentence, higher courts often commute the sentence to life imprisonment, which is why no female executions have been carried out. Regardless of gender, convicts sentenced to death remain in death row cells until execution.
