A court in Joypurhat on Wednesday sentenced 17 people to life-term imprisonment for the murder of a man over a land dispute.
The lifers are Hadiuzzaman, Arifur Rahman, Abu Nasr, Dr Shahjahan Ali, Ashraf Ali, Mohammad Ali alias Lal Mohammad, Mohammad Ali, Zahir Uddin, Shamsum Alam, Sayem Uddin, Obaidul, Saim, Rahim, Abu Sayeed, Abu Bakr, Banu Begum and Sahera Begum.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Court-2 Judge Md Abbas Ali handed down the verdict. The court also fined them Tk 10,000 each.
Public prosecutor (PP) Nripendranath Mondal and assistant public prosecutor (APP) Uday Chandra Singh Roy confirmed the matter.
Five other accused were acquitted after they were found not guilty.
The court and case sources said the accused had a dispute with Saleh Mohammad Pramanik, son of late Altaf Hossain Pramanik, a resident of Aymarasulpur village in Panchbibi upazila, and a case was going on in this regard.
In continuation, the accused forcefully took Saleh Mohammad to the home of Mohammad Ali on May 2, 2009, and beat up him mercilessly, leaving him dead.
Later, his brother Azizul Islam Pramanik lodged a case with Panchbibi Police Station in this connection.