Staff Reporter :
Anwara Begum, mother of slain Sohagi Jahan Tonu, on Monday again demanded of the government to identify her daughter’s killers and ensure their highest punishment through proper trial.
“My family is disappointed as our daughter’s killers have not been identified yet in the last three months. Will the poor people like my family get justice?” she questioned while speaking at a protest rally at Kandirpar in Comilla district Monday morning.
“Only demand of my family is immediate arrest of the culprits and fair trial.”
Expressing grave concern she further said they would not get justice because they are poor.
Comilla unit of Gonojagoron Mancha organised the rally to mark the three months of the murder of Tonu. Anwara Begum alleged that her husband Yaar Hossain is under surveillance. “My husband is under surveillance. Threat has already been issued to kill my husband by crushing him under the wheel of vehicle or motorbike. Our dish connection has already been cut off in order to deprive us watching news on my daughter,” she added.
Explaining the absence of her husband at the gathering, Anwara said, “Don’t you know her (Tonu’s) father is kept confined? He has been told to speak to no one.”
She said she wanted to know from the government and everyone why he had been so ordered. “He does not speak against the government. Can’t Tonu’s father seek justice?”
Tanu’s father, Yaar Hossain, is an employee of the Comilla Cantonment Board. He lives in the quarters within the Cantonment.
“The army personnel took away my daughter’s diary and album from my residence. Trial of Tonu’s killers is being intentionally barred in many ways,” Anwara Begum alleged.
The members of law enforcing agencies, including police, have been drawn flak for failing to identify the killers, even three months after the murder. The investigators have already said the cause of Tonu’s death is still unknown and the second autopsy does not suggest rape; it only found evidence of ‘sexual intercourse’ before her murder.
DNA tests, however, had confirmed that the 19-year-old college student was raped before being killed.
Following a court order, Tonu’s body was exhumed on March 30 and the three-member board conducted the second autopsy the same day. On May 16, CID officials said the DNA tests revealed that Tonu was raped before being murdered. The tests found presence of spermatozoa of three males on her clothing, exposing the flaws of first autopsy that did not find evidence of rape and determine the cause of death.
The three-member board then decided it would not submit the second autopsy findings until it got DNA test report.
Following a court order, the CID handed the DNA test report to the board on June 7. The killing of Tonu sparked widespread protests across the country. The issue was also discussed widely in the cabinet meeting. The body of Tonu, 19, a second year History student of Victoria College and a member of Victoria College Theatre, was recovered from Comilla’s Mainamati Cantonment area on March 20.
