"I thank God as I was able to see justice delivered in my life time," Fazlur Rahman, the plaintiff of the case filed against former BNP minister Aminul Haque and others told The Daily Star over telephone yesterday after the verdict of the case was delivered.

"Even though most of the JMB [Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh] kingpins were hanged and their masterminds put in jail, I still cannot go to my village as their followers remain," said Fazlur, a JMB torture victim. He now lives at his in-law's house in Bogra.

"The militants have handicapped me, not only physically but also financially as I had to either sell or lease out all my properties for my treatment," he added. "Still, I cannot sleep properly due to pains in my body," he said adding that he needs more money for treatment. Fazlur, a farmer from Baghmara, took treatment for almost two years after JMB second-in-command Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai and his men tortured him.

Fazlur lodged the case on March 30 this year with Baghmara Police Station, Rajshahi. Sub-inspector Mukhtar Hossain submitted the charge sheet of the case on April 23 accusing 27 people including former BNP minister Aminul Haque and the verdict of the case was delivered yesterday. Fazlur said he filed the case of his own accord hoping to get justice as he was encouraged by the deeds of the present caretaker government.

A Rajshahi court yesterday handed down the jail sentence of 31 years and six months to 25 people including BNP leader and former minister Barrister Aminul Haque for financing and abetting JMB militants. The second court of Additional Sessions Judge also fined each of the convicts Tk 25,000, in default, they would have to suffer three more years behind bars.

Bangla Bhai himself and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) militants kidnapped him on April 20, 2004 and took him to their torture camp, set up at the Hamir Kechchha house of Ramzan Kaya, who the locals claim to be a Liberation War collaborator.

Fazlur, in an interview with The Daily Star earlier, said, "Armed with machetes, iron rods, bamboos and hockey sticks, 20 JMB thugs led by Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai picked me up at Hasanpur."

Only three weeks earlier, Bangla Bhai started his operation publicly and set up a camp in Baghmara under the banner of JMJB.

"I was going to the Union Health Centre in my village along with my wife and three daughters. They showed up on motorbikes and took me to the house of Ramzan Kaya at Hamir Kechchha and locked me inside a room," he said.

A number of men of Bangla Bhai got Fazlur out of the house and asked him if he knew them. "You are a Sarbohara [member of an outlawed party]. Where is your arms and ammunition?" he quoted Bangla Bhai as saying. "I am just a poor farmer. I never worked for any underground party," he told Bangla Bhai.

As he kept denying he was a Sarbohara, he was asked to pay a ransom of Tk 2 lakh.

Being refused the ransom, Bangla Bhai started beating him. As other armed zealots joined in. He soon fainted, he told The Daily Star during the interview.

His wife Jotsna Begum recovered him later by a pond next to the camp and took him to hospital. He was later moved to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital and Bangladesh Rehabilitation Centre for Trauma (BRCT) in Dhaka.