Former army officer Hafizur rearrested

The Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) has rearrested retired army personnel Hafizur Rahman after the Appellate Division cancelled his bail in the murder case of Sohagi Jahan Tanu, a student of Cumilla Victoria Government College and theatre activist.

According to a PBI statement issued on Saturday, Hafizur was arrested from his residence in Keraniganj for failing to comply with a court order directing him to surrender. The process of sending him to a court in Cumilla is underway.

A High Court bench granted Hafizur bail last Sunday, and he was released from Cumilla Central Jail on Tuesday evening.

The state later challenged the bail order in the Appellate Division. On Thursday, the court cancelled Hafizur’s bail and directed him to surrender within 24 hours, instructing law enforcement agencies to arrest him if he failed to do so.

Although the deadline expired on Friday evening, Hafizur did not surrender. The PBI arrested him a few hours later.

The PBI, which is investigating the case, had arrested Hafizur from his Keraniganj residence on the night of April 22 this year, nearly a decade after Tanu’s murder.

The following day, he was produced before a Cumilla court, where the agency sought a seven-day remand for questioning. Cumilla Senior Judicial Magistrate Mominul Haque later granted a three-day remand.