Three Indian nationals have pleaded guilty for negligence in the incident that caused the death of young Bangladeshi girl.
The eight-year old Bangladeshi girl succumbed to injuries sustained when a falling cement bag from a construction site crushed the girl last December. The construction site was being maintained by W Construction Pvt Ltd.
Last month, the police concluded their investigation into the case and sent the case to the Prosecutor General's Office seeking prosecution. While six individuals were charged over Rawshan's death, four are Indian laborers working for the company.
At the first preliminary hearings held at the Criminal Court on Thursday, all six individuals under trial were present without a lawyer. The Criminal Court had previously notified the accused in writing granting them ten days to arrange a lawyer.
The four expatriates stated that a lawyer would be arranged for them by their employer, W Construction Pvt Ltd, and arrangements have not been made thus far. The two Maldivians from the company who have been charged also requested additional time to arrange a lawyer. However the presiding judge made the decision to go ahead with the hearing without lawyer representation, noting that the suspects still had the opportunity to arrange a lawyer for future hearings.
At the preliminary hearing, three Indians Rajjav Ali, Muthumani Ramachandhuran and Keshariral Chauhan pleaded guilty to their charges of negligence that caused the death of an individual.
Rajjav Ali was operating the winch lift that had caused the cement bag to fall, while Muthumani Ramachandhuran was the person who instructed Rajjav Ali to operate the winch while aware that Rajjav was not the staff assigned for the task. The employee who was originally tasked with operating the winch was on break at the time, and Rajjav had voluntarily offered to operate the winch.
Both individuals asserted that the accident was not intentional and they meant no harm. However, their charges does not require the action to have been intentional to be proven against them. Due to their admittance in court, Rajjav's sentence will be decreased from six years in jail to four years and six months for pleading guilty, while Muthumani's sentence will be decreased from three years 2 months and 12 days to two years four months and 24 days.
Keshariral Chauhan was one of the employees who were loading the cement bags to the winch. He is being charged with failure to warn a person of hazard. His sentence will be lessened from one year and six months in jail to 27 days due to admittance of charge.
The fourth individual, Gulan Mohamed who was also loading the cement bags to the winch denied his charge of failure to warn a person of hazard. Denying the charges, Gulan said the incident did not occur due to any fault of his.
In addition to the Indian nationals, two Maldivians are being charged over Rawshan's death. Moosa Hassan, senior site supervisor at W Construction and Adam Shafeeq, Managing Director of the company are both being charged with criminal negligence that caused the death of an individual. While they denied the charges against them, if the charges against them are proven, they will face a prison sentence of one year, seven months and six days.
According to criminal procedural laws, if those who are being prosecuted plead guilty to their charges, a sentence should be delivered within 5 days from the date of admittance. Therefore, a hearing has now been scheduled for 26th March to deliver a verdict on the three individuals who pleaded guilty.
Rawshan was the daughter of Bangladeshi expats working in a Maldives island. After her death, her parents have implored authorities to find justice for their daughter.
