Staff Reporter :Investigators are grasping for new leads in horrific murder of 19-year-old Sohagi Jahan Tonu, an undergraduate student of Comilla Victoria College.She was murdered near her house inside Comilla Cantonment on March 20. Tonu’s father Yaar Hossain, an office assistant of the Cantonment Board, filed a murder case with Comilla’s Kotwali police the next day without naming anyone.The investigators initially suspected that Tonu was raped before the murder but the forensic experts didThen who killed not find any evidence of rape in the first autopsy report. They even did not find any specific reason behind her death making the case further complicated. Rejecting the forensic report, activists of different women rights groups, student and social and cultural bodies who have been demonstrating in the capital and in several districts demanding justice for Tonu’s murder, on Tuesday said that the report has been prepared in order to divert the murder case in other direction. “We are rejecting the findings of the first autopsy report conducted by the forensic team of Camilla Medical college,” Bangladesh Mahila Parishad President Ayesha Khanom, told the New Nation on Tuesday. She said, “It is unacceptable that the forensic experts did not find any sign of rape before her death or the cause behind the death. All these seem to be a plot to veil the perpetrators of Tonu murderer”.Ayesha Khanom said that the blood stained body of Tonu indicated that a group of people was involved in the killing of Tonu but the investigators are yet to identify any of them raising many questions in the minds of general public. “Why they are taking much time to make the breakthrough of the case.. Are they trying to hide anything big or anybody? She questioned. Yaar Hossain on Tuesday also rejected the findings of the first autopsy conducted on Tonu’s body as it failed to clear whether she was raped before the murder or how she was killed.Talking to reporters, Yaar Hossain expressed his discontent over the autopsy report. “I myself took the bloodstained body of my daughter to the CMH. My daughter was killed. But what the doctors are saying now! Is that my daughter was killed by an evil spirit?” he questioned.Yaar Hossain hoped that the second autopsy will unveil the real cause of her death, and sought the Prime Minister’s intervention in getting justice for Tonu’s murder. “Sixteen days have already been elapsed into murder, no arrests have been made. The investigators are pursuing promising leads even failed to find any clue raising concerns in my mind that the case is getting cold. Who killed Tonu….my family is still looking for answers,” he added. Earlier on Monday, doctors of Forensic Department at Comilla Medical College Hospital revealed that the autopsy did not find any sign of rape before the death of Tonu. “We didn’t find any sign of rape and it is not even clear how she was killed,” Forensic Department Professor Kamoda Prosad Saha told media. On Wednesday last, the body of Tonu was exhumed from her grave in Muradnagar upazila of the district for a fresh postmortem in compliance with a court order. “There are challenges around investigation…Evidential difficulties made the case further complicated,” a CID official told The New Nation on Tuesday, preferring anonymity. He added: We are trying our best to make headway into the investigation as soon as possible. Before this, we have to wait for the second autopsy report. The murder case was initially handed over to Detective Branch (DB) of police on March 25. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was put in charge of the case on March 26.A CID team, headed by Special Superintendent Abdul Kahar Akand, on Sunday visited the crime scene and talked to doctors at the Comilla Combined Military Hospital, said Special Superintendent Md Nazmul Karim Khan of the CID’s Comilla-Noakhali region.The CID police had interrogated one son of an army officer in connection with the murder of Sohagi Jahan Tonu.The youth named Piyal, student of a private university, was quizzed at the Comilla Cantonment on Sunday evening, said Officer-in-charge AKM Manzurul Alam of Comilla Detective Branch (DB)According to DB Inspector Manzurul Alam, Tonu’s father Yaar Hossain had told them that Piyal had proposed marriage and used to harass her on her way to and from home. “The CID has quizzed Piyal in continuation of the DB’s interrogations,” Alam. Dr Kamada Prasad Saha, who conducted the autopsy on Tonu, said the CID team had talked to his team over the post-mortem.
