Four arrested suspects over the killing of ruling Awami League lawmaker Anwarul Azim Anar were taken into police remand in Dhaka and Kolkata on Friday, while police in Kolkata were yet to find the body of the victim.
In Dhaka, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Dilruba Afroz Tithy placed three arrested on eight-day remand after Detectives Branch of police鈥檚 assistant commissioner Mahfujul Islam produced them before her court with a 10-day remand petition for interrogation, said public prosecutor Abdus Sattar Dulal.
The three accused are Amanullah, alias Shimul Bhuiyan, Celesty Rahman, and Tanvir Bhuiyan. No lawyer defended the accused during the hearing.
It was mentioned in the remand petition that Aktaruzzaman Shaheen had had business dealings with the victim for a long time. Shaheen was angry with Anwarul over some issues, including business dealings, but the victim was unaware of them.
Besides, the victim also had a long-standing conflict of political ideologies with Shimul Bhuiyan. So they planned to kill him outside the country, it said.
Shaheen gave an assignment to Shimul Bhuiyan in Kolkata to kill Anwarul, asking him not to keep any evidence. Later, Shaheen returned home on May 10, according to the petition.
聽As part of the plan, on May 13, accused Shimul Bhuiyan, Tanveer, and Celesty, along with the absconding unknown accused, brutally killed Anwarul and hid his body with a view to hiding evidence, and then they returned home, it also added.
The three accused were arrested in a case filed by Anwarul鈥檚 daughter, Mumtarin Ferdoush Doreen, with Sher-E-Bangla Nagar Police Station in Dhaka.
The lawmaker Anwarul went to Kolkata on May 12 for 鈥榤edical treatment鈥� and was untraced from May 13.
On Wednesday, home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said that a lawmaker was brutally killed at a flat in New Town, near Kolkata.
DB chief Harun-or-Rashid told reporters in Dhaka on Thursday that the killers cut the victim鈥檚 body into pieces, separated the flesh from the bone, and carried those in two suitcases to dump in different places.
So that no suspicion could be raised, they treated the flesh with turmeric, he said.
According to Indian media reports, a court in Barasat in the North 24 Pargana district of West Bengal has placed Jihad Howladar, a Bangladeshi citizen and butcher by profession, on a 12-day remand for questioning in the Anwarul murder.
The West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department on Thursday arrested Jihad, who had entered India illegally and was staying in Mumbai, hiding his true identity.
Different Indian media reported that 24-year-old Jihad, a resident of Barakpur in Khulna, was arrested in Bangaon. He confessed to his involvement in the sensational murder of lawmaker Anwarul, according to media reports.
Anandabazar and NDTV said that in the face of the CID interrogation, Jihad revealed that Anwarul was strangled to death and then his body was severed into pieces before his bones and flesh were separated.
After removing the skins from the limb, the accused put turmeric powder on it to make it appear that the meat was taken for cooking. The detectives learned that the body parts were spread in different places.
Quoting West Bengal CID sources, Anandabazar reported that Jihad was taken to a place in Bhangar following his arrest on Thursday. He confessed that he had left body parts there following the murder of Anwarul. However, police didn鈥簍 find any body parts there in the darkness of the night.
Jihad confessed to killing Anwarul along with four other Bangladeshi nationals.
The accused dismembered the victim鈥檚 body in a bid to hide his identity, the CID said.
鈥笲utcher Jihad was brought to Kolkata from Mumbai two months ago at the behest of Md Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen, a US citizen of Bangladeshi origin and the alleged mastermind of the murder, the CID said.
Investigators also got some information from CCTV footage, as the accused were seen leaving the New Town apartment with a trolley bag.
Three of them were arrested in Dhaka.
It is believed that the body parts were taken using that trolley bag, Indian media reports said.
Kolkata police filed a murder case in this regard at New Town police station.
DB chief Harun said on Thursday that West Bengal police were working to locate the missing body parts of the slain Bangladeshi lawmaker.
Besides, a four-member team of the Indian intelligence team reached Dhaka on Thursday to investigate the murder.