A Bangladesh court on Friday sent three suspects to an eight-day police remand for their alleged involvement in the brutal murder of the ruling Awami League lawmaker Anwarul Azim Anar while he was in India.
Mr Anar, a three-time parliamentarian from the Jhenaidah-4 segment in Bangladesh and also the president of Awami League’s Kaliganj sub-district unit, had made a personal visit to West Bengal’s capital city Kolkata on May 12 to undergo medical treatment. He went missing from Kolkata on May 13.
According to the Kolkata police, circumstantial evidence indicated that the MP was first strangulated and killed after which his body was chopped into pieces and dumped at different areas. Traces of his body or body parts are yet to be found.
Bangladesh Police had arrested three persons in connection with his murder. On Friday, police produced the three accused identified as Tanvir, Shimul Bhuiyan and Silisti Rahman before the Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Dilruba Afroz Tithi and sought their 10-day remand.
After the hearing, the court sent the three to an eight-day police remand.
According to Bangladesh police, Bhuiyan, a leader of the outlawed Purbo Banglar Communist Party, changed his name to Amanullah and obtained a fake passport to facilitate the killing of the lawmaker in Kolkata and evade law enforcement agencies.
The murder was planned two to three months ago, with multiple meetings held at two houses in Gulshan and Bashundhara areas which are owned by mastermind and the MP’s close friend Aktaruzzaman Shahin. Akhtaruzzaman, a Bangladeshi-born American citizen, fled to Nepal after the murder, police said.
A team of the West Bengal CID visited Bangladesh on Thursday to interrogate the three accused.
Earlier on May 23, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mahbubul Haque set a July 4 deadline for submitting the probe report in the case.
Anar’s daughter Mumtarin Ferdous Dorin filed the case on May 22 with the Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police station.
Meanwhile, a police officer in Kolkata claimed that the West Bengal CID has arrested a Bangladeshi citizen, who is a butcher by profession, from the state’s Bangaon area in North 24 Parganas district for his alleged involvement in Anar’s murder.
The man admitted during interrogation that he had helped the other accused in chopping the victim’s body before disposing of the parts in different locations, the officer claimed.
An initial probe also found out that the MP’s close friend Akhtaruzzaman, a US citizen, had paid around Rs 5 crore to those involved in the crime, the senior police officer said.
The MP’s friend has a flat in Kolkata, and is probably in the US at present, he said.
