A Rajshahi court has acquitted 17 people in a case filed over the brutal murder of Dipankar Saha, a leaseholder from Atrai, in a torture cell of terrorist Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai in Bagmara in 2004.

The judge has acquitted all the accused as the state failed to prove the allegations against them, Prosecutor Shafiqul Islam said.

He also said 20 witnesses testified in the case filed against 18 people, including Siddiqul Islam. As Siddiqul, the chief of banned militant outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), had already been executed in other murder cases, the Dipankar murder case was run against the remaining 17.

Meanwhile, four more accused died during the 16-year-long trial of the case. In the court, 12 of the remaining 13 accused were present while one was a fugitive, he added.

According to the case statement, on 29 April 2004, Dipankar Saha was brutally beaten to death in Hamirkutsa camp under the leadership of the then JMB leader Bangla Bhai.

On the same day, Dipankar's father Dwijendranath Saha filed a murder case with Bagmara Police Station.

The statement also said Dipankar was the lessee of Kashiabari Ghat in Atrai.