Justice Bhabani Prasad Singha and Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam came up with the observation in the full verdict of the sensational Narayanganj seven-murder cases.
The full text of the 800-page judgment was released on Monday and later it was published on the website of the Supreme Court.
“… a strong message needs to be sent to the perpetrators of grotesque crimes and inhuman conduct in ghastly manner against humanity so that no such gravest crime of extreme brutality as committed by the convicted-accused persons of this case is committed by anybody else in future and that none is above law,” the court said in the observation.
Mentioning that Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) is a symbol of security and trust in the estimation of people, it, however, said the acts of a few aberrated Rab–personnel like those in this case, the glory and achievement of the force cannot be tarnished in any way.”
In the present case, the accused Rab personnel acted illegally with individual responsibility and upon personal interest, the court said.
On August 22, 2017, the High Court upheld the death sentence of 15 convicts, including Nur Hossain and three Rab officials, and commuted the penalty of 11 others to life imprisonment in two cases filed over the seven murders.
The court also upheld various jail terms of nine others in the cases.
Before that, a Narayanganj court on January 16, 2017 sentenced 26 people, including three sacked Rab officials and ex-city councilor Nur Hossain, to death and nine others to different jail terms in the two cases.
On April 27, 2014, Narayanganj panel mayor Nazrul Islam, his three associates, driver and senior lawyer at the District Judge's Court Chandan Kumar Sarkar and his driver were abducted from Narayanganj.
Three days after their abduction, the bodies of six of them were recovered from the Shitalakhya River.
The following day, the body of Nazrul's car driver Jahangir was recovered from the river.