 "Body chopped, skin peeled: How Bangladesh MP was murdered in India by illegal immigrant")
The case of the shocking murder of a Bangladesh MP continues to unravel.
Bangladesh Member of Parliament Anwarul Azim Anar had travelled to Kolkata on 12 May and reportedly went missing a day later. He was later found dead in New Town on Wednesday, 22 May.
The West Bengal CID on Thursday evening detained one person for his alleged involvement in the “murder” of the 56-year-old, who was last seen at a rented apartment in New Town, according to PTI.
Startling revelations from the investigation have shown how the crime was meticulously planned and carried out.
(Trigger warning: Please note that the report contains graphical details of the murder, which could be distressing to some. Reader discretion is advised.)
Shocking details of the gruesome murder
The accused is identified as Bangladeshi national Jihad Hawladar, a butcher by profession. The 24-year-old is an illegal immigrant who lives in Mumbai, according to NDTV.
News18 sources with direct knowledge of the incident claim that the politician’s friend, Akhtaruzzaman, a US citizen, is the mastermind behind the heinous murder.
“Hawaldar, a resident of Khulna district in Bangladesh, was brought to Kolkata two months before the MP’s friend Akhtaruzzaman, a US citizen of Bangladeshi origin, who is the mastermind of this planned gruesome murder,” according to the channel quoting its sources.
Impact Shorts
View AllThe investigative findings have produced some extremely unsettling information.
Police suspect that the MP could have been “lured” into a New Town flat by a woman and then murdered by contract killers.
“Investigation indicated that the Bangladeshi parliamentarian fell into a honey trap laid by a woman who was also close to the victim’s friend. It seems, Anar was lured into the New Town flat by the woman. We suspect he was murdered soon after he went to the flat,” PTI quoted an official as saying.
The CID is examining the CCTV footage which showed Anar entering the flat with a man and a woman, the officer said.
Hawladar, the accused, told police during interrogation that he and four other Bangladeshi nationals killed Anwarul Azim Anar at the flat by strangling him on Akhtaruzzaman’s orders.
“Thereafter they deskinned his entire body in the flat, removed all the flesh and minced the flesh to destroy the identity. Then, they packed everything in a polybag, cut the bones into small pieces and packed them as well. The accused then used various modes of transportation to dispose of those packets at different locations within the Kolkata area,” News18 sources said.
“In the CCTV footage, the politician was seen entering the flat with the two persons. The duo was later seen coming out and again re-entering the flat the next day but the MP was not seen again,” the officer told PTI.
Police said the duo was later seen coming out of the flat with a big trolley suitcase.
The arrested accused will be produced at the Barasat court today, where police will seek his remand to verify his statement and recover the missing body parts.
Anar, who went missing in Kolkata on 13 May, was found murdered and three people have been arrested, Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said on Wednesday.
The Bengal CID was investigating the case after taking over from the West Bengal Police. At the time, Anar’s body was yet to be recovered.
The CID has found blood stains inside the New Town flat and also recovered several plastic bags, which they believe were used to dump the body parts.
Circumstantial evidence indicates that the MP was first strangulated and then his dead body was mutilated in several parts, police claimed.
“We suspect that after killing Anar, the murderers mutilated the body, segregated the flesh from the bones and mixed those with turmeric powder to delay decomposition. The body parts were probably put inside plastic bags and scattered at different locations. We also suspect that some parts were kept in a refrigerator and we have collected samples,” the officer said, adding search for the body parts was underway.
Messages were also sent from his mobile phone to a few of his contacts asking them “not to contact him as he was travelling to Delhi.”
“It seems these messages were sent from the MP’s mobile phone to confuse his family members and friends and prevent them from launching a search for him… there is a possibility that these messages were sent after his murder,” he said.
Initial probe
The initial probe also found out that the MP’s close friend, a US citizen, had paid around Rs 5 crore to those involved in the crime, the senior police officer said.
The Awami League MP’s friend owns a flat in Kolkata, and is probably in the US at present, a senior police said.
Police also said that the flat in Kolkata’s New Town area, where the Bangladesh MP was last seen entering, was rented out to his friend by its owner, an excise department employee.
“It was a well-planned murder. A huge amount of money, around Rs 5 crore, was paid by an old friend of the MP to the contract killers to execute the crime. Further investigation is underway,” the officer said on Thursday.
The search for the missing MP, who reportedly arrived in Kolkata on 12 May to undergo medical treatment, began six days later after Gopal Biswas, a resident of Baranagar in north Kolkata and an acquaintance of the Bangladeshi politician, filed a complaint with the local police on 18 May.
Anar had stayed at Biswas’s house upon arrival.
In his complaint, Biswas stated that Anar left his Baranagar residence for a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon of 13 May, while stating that he would be back home for dinner.
Biswas claimed that the Bangladesh MP went incommunicado on 17 May, which prompted him to file a missing complaint a day later.
About the Bangladesh MP
Anar, a resident of Nischintapur village in Jhenaidah’s Kaliganj, was a member of Parliament in Bangladesh from the ruling Awami League.
He represented the Jhenaidah-4 constituency and was first elected to Parliament on 5 January 2014.
He was re-elected to Parliament in 2018.
An area of the India-Bangladesh border, Jhenaidah is known for its high crime rate.
In 2008, Interpol issued a notice against Anar in connection with several criminal cases including arms and explosives.
He was cleared of charges after he became an MP in 2014, reports The Telegraph.
Before the general election in January, the lawmaker himself acknowledged to the Election Commission that he had had 21 cases filed against him.
In his affidavit to the EC, he said he was discharged from seven cases and acquitted in the remaining 14.
According to Benar News cited media reports, the cases against him were related to smuggling, weapons, and extortion, among others.
With inputs from agencies
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