Tonu rape, murder: No progress in probe yet

The police could neither make any visible progress in the investigation into the rape and murder of Comilla Victoria College girl Sohagi Jahan Tonu inside Mainamati cantonment on March 20 nor discovered the clue to the crimes in five months. Although none has yet been arrested in the case, the family members of the victim are facing trouble to go out of their house in the cantonment area as they still need permission to cross the cantonment’s boundary, alleged Tonu’s parents. ‘There is no further progress in the investigation…We are still working,’ Criminal Investigation Department special superintendent of police Md Shahriyar Rahman, also the supervising officer of the investigation, told New Age on Tuesday. He said that none was so far arrested in the case. The victim’s parents alleged that the investigators neither shared any findings nor discussed anything about the case with them. ‘We seek justice…I want to see that the killers are identified and punished,’ Tonu’s father Yaar Hossain said. Tonu’s mother Anwara Begum said in tears that the result of Tonu’s second year examination was published in the past week and she passed the examination. ‘We see no progress in the investigation…We have left the issue to almighty Allah,’ she wailed. Sources in CID said that they had so far interrogated about 100 people including five army personnel and Tonu’s parents, brothers and friends. They, however, said that they were still working to find out the killers and why and how Tonu was killed. Tonu, a second-year student of history department and a member of Comilla Victoria College Theatre, went missing on March 20 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 father discovered her body in a bush near their house at about 11:30pm on the day. Following the killing, Tonu’s father lodged a case with the Comilla Kotwali police station on March 21 against unidentified people and investigation of the case was transferred to CID on March 28. As the first post mortem examination found no evidence of murder or rape, the country roared in protests and, amid the 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 on March 30. The second autopsy neither determined the cause of her death nor confirmed whether she was raped but found evidence of ‘intercourse’ before the death. The report handed over to Comilla CID on June 12 by a three-member forensic team led by Comilla Medical College forensic medicine department head Kamda Prasad Shaha advised police investigators to carry out further investigation to determine the cause of the death. Kamada on Tuesday, however, declined to comment on their findings. On May 16, CID officials said that they, on court order, conducted DNA profiling for Tonu and the report confirmed that Tonu was raped before her death and three male’s DNA profile was found in the report. The investigators said that a small group of people might have killed Tonu and dumped the body in the bush near the boundary of the Comilla Cantonment between 10:10pm and 10:30pm on March 20 after she was raped in another place inside the cantonment anytime in the evening.

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