The Chief Judicial Magistrate Court in Cumilla on Monday ordered the authorities concerned to conduct a cross-match of DNA profiles of three former army personnel with those earlier collected from the clothing of Sohagi Jahan Tonu, a Cumilla Govt Victoria College student who was killed in 2016.

Cumilla chief judicial magistrate Md Mominul Haque passed the order after Police Bureau of Investigation’s inspector Tariqul Islam, also the investigating officer of the Tonu murder case, appeared before the court and sought permission to carry out the DNA cross-matching.

According to the investigation officer, DNA profiles had previously been extracted from Tonu’s personal clothing soon after the incident. However, those samples were never matched with any suspects at the time.

‘The court has now directed that the DNA profiles of three individuals be cross-matched with the samples collected earlier,’ Tariqul said, adding that the three suspects are former army personnel who have since retired.

However, the identities of the suspects were not disclosed.

Earlier in the day, the PBI officer submitted a progress report to the court, which also instructed him to place an updated report on the next date of hearing.

Tonu, a second-year student of the history department at Victoria College, went missing on March 20, 2016, after leaving for private tuition inside Cumilla Cantonment.

Her body was later recovered from a nearby bush, prompting her father, Yar Hossain, to file a murder case with Cumilla Kotwali police station.

The case has since undergone multiple changes of investigating agencies, moving from local police to the Detective Branch, then the Criminal Investigation Department, and later to the PBI, but no breakthrough has been achieved so far.

Family members have long alleged a lack of transparency in the investigation, claiming that earlier DNA tests were conducted, but their results were never made public.

Tariqul is the sixth officer to lead the probe.