ONE YEAR OF TONU MURDER: Hardly any headway in probe [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

ONE YEAR OF TONU MURDER: Hardly any headway in probe

Local March 20, 2017

The police could make hardly any headway in the investigation into the murder and rape of Comilla Victoria College girl Sohagi Jahan Tonu in Mainamati Cantonment in Comilla on March 20, 2016 even inside one year of the crimes.
Criminal Investigation Department officials said that they were yet to identify the killers and the motive for the killing.
Tonu’s father Yaar Hossain said that the investigators neither shared any findings nor discussed anything about the case with them. ‘We seek justice…I want to know why my daughter was killed and want to see that the killers are identified and punished,’ he said.
‘We know nothing about the investigation till now. Had there been any progress, they [CID] would have informed us…We are frustrated and have left the matter for Allah,’ said Tonu’s elder brother Nazmul Hossain.
He said that his family would arrange a milad mahfil at their village home at Mirzapur of Muradnagar in Comilla today marking the anniversary of Tonu’s death.
Second-year student of history Tonu, also Comilla Victoria College Theatre member, went missing on March 20, 2016 after she went out from her house at Alipur staff quarters inside the cantonment in the afternoon to give tuition at two houses in the staff quarters. Her body was found in a bush near their house at about 11:30pm.
Tonu’s father lodged a case with the Comilla Kotwali police station on March 21, 2016 against unidentified people. The case was transferred to CID on March 28, 2016 for investigation.
‘The investigation is on and we expect a result soon,’ CID additional special superintendent Pronob Kumar Roy, also one of the
supervising officers of the investigation, told New Age on Sunday.
‘We have been investigating,’ was his answer while asked whether they could identify the killers or the motive for the killing.
The investigation officer of the case, CID senior assistant superintendent Jalal Uddin, said that the investigation was slow between November 2016 and January 2017 due to army’s ‘winter exercise.’ ‘But the investigation is now in full swing.’
He said that none was arrested in the case and they had interrogated 105 people including army personnel and Tonu’s parents, brothers and friends.
‘We, however, did not get any direct witness to the crime,’ he said.
He said that they were examining and verifying the information they gathered from interrogations. ‘But we are yet to get reports of the forensic tests of evidences collected from the spot including Tonu’s sandal. We need the reports for reaching a conclusion.’
The country burst in protests as the first post mortem examination found ‘no evidence’ of murder or rape. Amid protests, a second post-mortem examination was performed on Tonu’s exhumed body at the forensic department at Comilla Medical College following a court order issued on March 30, 2016.
The second autopsy neither determined the cause of her death nor confirmed whether she was raped but found evidence of ‘intercourse’ before the death.
On May 16, 2016, CID officials said that they conducted DNA profiling for Tonu following a court order and the report confirmed that Tonu was raped before her death and three male’s DNA profile was found.
The investigators said that a small group of people might have killed Tonu after rape and dumped the body in the bush near the boundary of the Comilla Cantonment.