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Police have arrested Hafizur Rahman, the first suspect in the Sohagi Jahan Tonu murder case, marking the first arrest in the case after ten years and a court has granted a three-day remand for interrogation.
The arrested accused, former army personnel Hafizur Rahman, was detained on Tuesday from his residence in Keraniganj, Dhaka, in a drive conducted by the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI).
He was produced before the Cumilla Senior Judicial Magistrate Court-1 on this afternoon, where Judge M Mominul Haque granted the remand after a hearing. The investigating officer had sought a seven-day remand.
Tonu's parents and brother were present in the courtroom during the hearing.
Investigation officer and PBI Inspector Md. Tariqul Islam told the court that Hafizur Rahman is among three suspects whose DNA samples have been submitted for verification. The court earlier approved the DNA matching request on April 6.
The other two suspects are Sergeant Jahid and soldier Shahin Alam, both of whom have retired from the armed forces.
Hafizur Rahman retired from military service in 2023. At the time of the murder, he was stationed at Cumilla Cantonment.
According to the case details, Sohagi Jahan Tonu, a history student of Cumilla Victoria Government College and a theatre activist, went missing on the evening of March 20, 2016, after going to a tutoring session inside Cumilla Cantonment. Her body was later recovered from a bush near the Power House area inside the cantonment.
The following day, her father, Yar Hossain, then an office assistant at the Cantonment Board (now retired), filed a murder case with Kotwali Model Police Station against unidentified suspects.
