Sona Mia, who was allegedly made a scapegoat in a case involving Rohingya refugee Ramzan Ali’s identity fraud, has been released on bail by a court in Cox’s Bazar.
Sona Mia had been awaiting execution in jail after he was arrested with 190,000 yaba tablets and later sentenced to death in the case. It was later revealed that the person arrested in 2020 using Sona Mia’s identity was actually Ramzan Ali.
Cox’s Bazar District Bar Association President Md Abdul Mannan and Cox’s Bazar District Jail Superintendent Md Obaidur Rahman confirmed that Sona Mia was released from Cox’s Bazar District Jail around 11am on Friday after being granted bail with four conditions.
According to them, the judge of Cox’s Bazar District and Sessions Court granted his bail on Thursday. The bail order reached the jail later that evening.
Mannan said Sona Mia was granted bail on the conditions that he would submit his national identity card, appear at the police station every week, not leave the country, and appear before the court every three months.
The Bar Association president said the court had instructed police to quickly identify and arrest the actual accused and produce him before the court.
How it began
The incident originated on 2 March 2020, when Cox’s Bazar District Detective Branch (DB) police arrested five people with 190,000 yaba tablets during an operation.
In the case filed by police after the seizure, Sona Mia was named as the second accused. The first information report mentioned his father’s name as Nazir Ahmed, his current address as Kutubdia Para under Ward 1 of Cox’s Bazar municipality and his permanent address as Garjania in Ramu upazila.
The FIR stated that the name and identity of Sona Mia were obtained from a photocopy of a birth registration certificate found with the person arrested during the operation.
According to court documents, the then DB Inspector and investigation officer Mans Barua submitted the charge sheet in September 2020.
The charge sheet stated that police from Cox’s Bazar Sadar and Ramu police stations investigated the name and address of the second accused but found the details provided by ‘Sona Mia’ to be incorrect.
The investigation officer mentioned in the charge sheet that as the accused’s name and address could not be verified, he should remain in jail until completion of the trial process.
Court records show that the alleged Sona Mia was granted bail by Cox’s Bazar District and Sessions Court on 13 June 2022. After being released, he went into hiding and became a fugitive.
In February 2026, the court sentenced five accused, including Sona Mia, to death in the case. Following the verdict, Sona Mia was arrested on 23 June by a team of Rapid Action Battalion-15 based on an arrest warrant issued by a senior warrant officer.
Although RAB arrested the person using Sona Mia’s birth registration certificate, the real accused Ramzan Ali remained at large.
After being sent to jail, the arrested Sona Mia told the jail superintendent that he was not an accused in the case. He said he came to know after entering jail that he had been sentenced to death in a drug case.
The matter was then referred from Cox’s Bazar District Jail to the District and Sessions Court and later to Cox’s Bazar Sadar Model Police Station.
A police investigation later found that the Sona Mia arrested with yaba in 2020 and the Sona Mia arrested after the 2026 death sentence were not the same person.
Cox’s Bazar Sadar Model Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Sheikh Mohammad Ali also confirmed the matter.
Following a court order, Cox’s Bazar Sadar Police submitted a fresh investigation report, stating that the person arrested with 190,000 yaba tablets in 2020 was actually Ramzan. He had used another person’s birth registration certificate to identify himself as Sona Mia.
However, the trial continued against him under the name Sona Mia, eventually leading to the death sentence.
How the ‘Aynabaji’ happened
In a report submitted on 2 July following the court’s order, Sadar Police said the person arrested with yaba in 2020 and the person arrested as Sona Mia on 23 June 2026 were different individuals.
According to the report, Ramzan used Sona Mia’s birth registration certificate to hide his real identity. Both Ramzan and Sona Mia had lived in a Rohingya camp at the same time. Later, after leaving the camp, they lived together in a house in Kutubdia Para in Cox’s Bazar city.
The report said Ramzan obtained Sona Mia’s birth registration certificate at some point and used its photocopy to introduce himself as Sona Mia.
There were also major discrepancies between jail records from the two periods.
The person arrested in 2020 was recorded as the son of deceased Nazir Ahmed, with his mother named Sonara Begum and wife Ayesha. He had two sons and two daughters. His height was recorded as 5 feet 3 inches and weight as 50kg. Identification marks included scars on both cheeks and the right arm.
On the other hand, the person arrested as Sona Mia on 23 June 2026 was recorded as the son of deceased Nazir Ahmed, but his mother’s name was Mahmuda Khatun and his wife’s name was Jannatul Ferdous. He had one son and three daughters. His height was recorded as 5 feet 1 inch and weight as 42kg. Identification marks included moles on his right arm, the left side of his abdomen and the middle of his back.
Questions over investigation and bail process
The incident has raised questions over the investigation and bail process. The investigation officer had mentioned in the charge sheet that Sona Mia’s name and address could not be verified. Questions have now emerged over how a person using that identity was granted bail and later sentenced to death.
Mannan told journalists that there appeared to have been serious negligence by the investigation officer from the beginning of the case until the submission of the charge sheet.
“Verifying the identity of a person who uses someone else’s birth registration certificate is the responsibility of the investigation officer. But in this case, the actual identity was not established before submitting the charge sheet,” he said.
He added that the investigation also failed to determine that Sona Mia’s real name was Ramzan. As a result, the actual accused secured bail and went into hiding, while the real Sona Mia was later arrested and sent to jail.
“This is a very serious matter,” Mannan said.
What the investigator and RAB said
Mans Barua, the then investigation officer and currently the officer-in-charge of Ruma Police Station in Bandarban, said the accused’s identity could not be properly verified during the investigation.
“Based on that, I submitted the charge sheet. As the accused had provided a false identity, I requested that he remain in jail until the trial process was completed,” he said.
RAB-15 Assistant Director (Law and Media) and Assistant Superintendent of Police AM Faruk said RAB arrested the accused based on the court-issued warrant.
He said RAB verified the name and address and confirmed the identity before making the arrest.
“RAB arrested Sona Mia according to the name and address provided by the court,” he said.
