"I am satisfied with the punishment awarded to Ripon," Don's mother Ruby Begum said, but she believes Ripon's mother Gulnahar Khatun should not have been spared.

"That woman induced her son (Ripon) to grab our property and Ripon, finding Don a big obstacle in his way, planned to kill him. Now, execution of the verdict may bring a little solace to us," she said.

Ripon, brother-in-law of five-year old Don, strangled him and left his body in a drain sometime between 4:00pm on August 19 and 9:00am on August 20 last year. A speedy trial tribunal yesterday awarded him death sentence for the murder.

Don's father Shafiqul Islam said the court has upheld the cause of justice by awarding the death penalty to Ripon.

"We hope the High Court will uphold the verdict to prove that no killer of an innocent child would be spared from now on," he said.

Meanwhile, Dithimoni, Ripon's wife and Don's elder sister, also accepted the verdict as being right.

"Since my marriage on September 13, 2001, Ripon and her mother would often beat me up for dowry. As we failed to give him Tk 1 lakh for going abroad recently, he planned to kill Don," she said.

"Ripon's mother 'injected a venom into him' that ultimately made him the beast which did not hesitate to kill my innocent brother," she said bursting into tears.

Special Public Prosecutor Abdul Latif Talukder, who moved for the state, said the verdict would discourage killing of children.

After the judgement Ripon said, "The verdict does not reflect justice."

Though he confessed to killing Don earlier, Ripon said there was no proof or any witness who saw him committing the crime.

"We will go to the High Court and, I am sure, the truth will come out," he claimed.

Advocate Ayat Ali Patwari, lawyer of the accused, said the prosecution and the investigative authority of the case contradicted each other. It is a 'flawed' case, he observed.

"The medical report did not corroborate the confessional statement given by the accused," he said.

Advocate Mustafizur Rahman, another lawyer of the accused, said the High Court would 'certainly reject the verdict'.