Judge Ashish Ranjan Das of Satkhira District and Sessions Judge Court passed the order to this effect last month after more than six years of the gruesome murder.

Arnab Kumar Das, 8-year-old son of Bimal Krishna Das of Saihati village in Kaliganj upazila was abducted by a gang of criminals in the afternoon of June 18, 2000.

Later, villagers recovered the trisected body from a ditch near his house after three days on June 21, 2000.

Victim's father Bimal Das filed a case with Kaliganj Police Station on the same day.

The brutal murder evoked protest from people in the area who brought out processions and held rallies demanding arrest and punishment to the killers.

Senate members and 41 teachers of Rajshahi University (RU) in a statement condemned the brutal murder and sought Prime Minister's intervention to arrest the culprits on June 28.

Over 10,000 people including women and students brought out a procession in the town and laid a siege to the office of the Deputy Commissioner (DC) on August 8. They demanded arrest and punishment to the culprits and withdrawal of the then Kaliganj Police Station officer-in-charge (OC) Rabiul Islam for allegedly sheltering the killers.

The then home minister Mohammad Nasim visited the victim's house and assured stern action against the culprits on September 5. He also suspended OC Rabiul Islam for his failure to arrest the culprits. The case was transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for investigation.

Investigation officer (IO) of the case Shahruzzaman, a sub-inspector (SI) of CID submitted chargesheet with a Satkhira court pressing charges against eight people on July 2, 2002.

The accused are Mukul, Abdus Sattar, Khalilur Rahman, former Champaphool Union Parishad (UP) chairman Matiar Rahman, Golam Farooque, Alhaj Rafiqul Islam, Raihan Ali and Shushil Chowkidar.

The trial was delayed in 2003 as two main accused Abdus Sattar and his son Khalilur Rahman of Godara village in Assassuni upazila submitted a petition to the High Court (HC) seeking quashment and the court suspended the trial of the case for certain reason.

Ultimately, the court rejected the petition after a long hearing and asked the lower court to resume trial of the case on March 1, 2006.

Later, on April 3, 2006, the immediate past government allegedly took a move to drop the names of Abdus Sattar and his son Khalilur Rahman from the list of accused as they were local BNP leaders.

Civil society leaders expressed resentment when the PP submitted a petition to drop their names from the charge-sheet on July 14, 2006.

After long hearing, the district and sessions judge's court judge rejected the petition and framed charges against all the accused.