Hafizur’s bail in Tonu murder case stayed, ordered to surrender
Sohagi Jahan Tonu and former army member Hafizur Rahman
The Appellate Division’s Chamber Court has stayed the bail granted by the High Court to former army member Hafizur Rahman in the murder case of Cumilla Victoria College student Sohagi Jahan Tonu and ordered him to surrender within 24 hours.
Chamber Judge Justice Md. Rezaul Haque issued the order today, Thursday, after hearing the state’s application challenging the bail granted by the High Court. Attorney General Barrister Md. Ruhul Quddus Kazal confirmed the matter.
Ten years after Tonu’s murder, Hafizur Rahman was arrested from his home in Keraniganj, Dhaka, on the night of April 21 this year by the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI), the agency investigating the case. The retired warrant officer of the Bangladesh Army was the only arrested accused in the case.
Later, on August 2, Hafizur Rahman was granted six months of interim bail by the High Court. Following the bail order, he was released from Cumilla Central Jail on the evening of August 4.
On Thursday, the state filed a leave to appeal application, seeking permission to appeal against the High Court’s bail order. The court issued the order after hearing the application.
Later, Attorney General Ruhul Quddus Kazal told journalists that the Chamber Judge had stayed the High Court’s bail order granted to the accused in the Tonu murder case. Hafizur Rahman has been ordered to surrender within 24 hours. If he fails to surrender within this period, police have been ordered to arrest him. The Chamber Court has scheduled Sunday for the next order.
The accused was serving at Cumilla Cantonment when Tonu was murdered in 2016. He retired from the Army in 2023. On April 21, police arrested him from his home in Keraniganj, Dhaka. The following day, April 22, his DNA sample was collected at the Criminal Investigation Department’s forensic laboratory in Dhaka in the morning before he was produced before a Cumilla court in the afternoon.
On the evening of March 20, 2016, Tonu went to a house inside Cumilla Cantonment to tutor students and did not return. After a search, her body was found in a bush near the power house inside the cantonment. It initially appeared that she had been raped and murdered.
The following day, her father, Iar Hossain, an office assistant at the Cantonment Board who is now retired, filed a murder case against unidentified accused persons at Cumilla Kotwali Model Police Station.
