Ramzan Ali committed the crime. But Sona Mia was sentenced to death.
Now, the man police say was never arrested with yaba in the first place is living in a condemned cell in Cox’s Bazar, awaiting punishment for a crime committed by someone else.
A fresh police investigation has found that the “Sona Mia” arrested with 1,90,000 yaba tablets in 2020 and the Sona Mia arrested on 23 June 2026 after a death sentence was handed down are not the same person.
Sheikh Mohammad Ali, officer-in-charge of Cox’s Bazar Sadar Police Station, confirmed the findings to TIMES of Bangladesh.
The investigation found that the man arrested in 2020 was actually Ramzan, who had concealed his identity and used the name Sona Mia in birth registration document.
Yet the case proceeded against him under the name “Sona Mia”, and that identity eventually carried a death sentence.
The extraordinary mistake surfaced only after the real Sona Mia was arrested following the verdict and sent to Cox’s Bazar District Jail.
Within days, he submitted a written application to the jail superintendent, insisting that he had never been an accused in the case. The matter reached the court, which ordered police to investigate again.
The report submitted by Sadar police on 2 July confirmed his claim.
The case began on 2 March 2020, when Cox’s Bazar District Detective Police arrested five people with 1,90,000 yaba tablets.
The second accused was recorded as “Sona Mia”, son of Nazir Ahmad, with an address at Kutubdiapara in Ward No. 1 of Cox’s Bazar municipality and a permanent address at Garjania in Ramu upazila.
But doubts about that identity existed from the beginning.
Then investigating officer Manas Barua said in the September 2020 charge sheet that the accused’s name and address could not be verified. Even inquiries through Cox’s Bazar Sadar and Ramu police failed to confirm his identity. He therefore recommended keeping the accused in prison while the trial continued.
Despite that uncertainty, court records show that “Sona Mia” obtained bail on 13 June 2022 and disappeared.
In February 2026, the court sentenced all five accused to death.
On 23 June, Rapid Action Battalion-15 arrested the real Sona Mia under the warrant and sent him to prison.
The new police investigation found striking differences between the two men.
The 2020 prison record listed the accused’s mother as Sonara Begum and wife as Ayesha. He had two sons and two daughters, including a son named Mohammad Ali. He was 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighed 50kg and had scars on both cheeks and his right arm.
The Sona Mia arrested in 2026 has a mother named Mahmuda Khatun and wife named Jannatul Ferdous. He has one son and three daughters. His son is Omar Faruk and one daughter is Nahida. He is 5 feet 1 inch tall, weighs 42kg and has moles on his right arm, abdomen and back.
Police said Ramzan and Sona Mia had lived in a Rohingya camp at the same time and later shared a house in Kutubdiapara. Sona Mia’s birth registration document somehow remained with Ramzan, who used a photocopy to pass himself off as Sona Mia.
The case has now raised serious questions over how an accused whose identity investigators themselves could not verify was granted bail and later convicted under that identity.
Asked how the mistake occurred, Manas Barua, now officer-in-charge of Ruma Police Station in Bandarban, said, “During the investigation, the real name and identity of the principal accused could not be verified. I submitted the charge sheet accordingly. As the accused had given a false identity, I had recommended that he be kept in prison while the trial proceedings continued.”
AM Faruk, assistant director for law and media of RAB-15, said the force had acted on the court warrant and arrested Sona Mia after verifying the name and address provided by the court.
Md Abdul Mannan, president of the Cox’s Bazar District Bar Association, blamed “gross negligence” in the investigation.
“If a person uses another person’s birth registration document to assume an identity, it is the investigating officer’s responsibility to verify it,” he said.
“The real accused secured bail and went into hiding. Later, instead of him, the real Sona Mia was traced, arrested and sent to prison. This is an extremely serious matter.”
For Sona Mia’s family, the consequences are already devastating.
His wife, Jannatul Ferdous, said her husband had never been involved in a criminal case or been to prison before.
Only after RAB arrested him, she said, did the family discover that he had been sentenced to death over 1,90,000 yaba tablets.
She said her husband was a resident of Ramu, not Rohingya, and had once been friends with a Rohingya man named Ramzan in Kutubdiapara.
They knew Ramzan had been arrested with yaba.
Now, she says, her husband is in prison for that crime.
