More gruesome details of the cruel killing of Member of Parliament (MP) from Jhenaidah-4 (Kaliganj) Constituency Anwarul Azim Anar in Kolkata are unravelling as investigations proceed.
According to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal Police, MP Anar’s body was minced to hide all traces of the murder.
During questioning, the people arrested in connection with the murder told police it was carried out on the orders of Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen, a Bangladeshi-US citizen who has been a childhood friend and business partner of the MP.
On Akhtaruzzaman’s orders, MP Anar was lured into the New Town flat, and then smothered with a pillow to kill him.
Following the murder, the body was chopped and then minced to get rid of all evidence.
The sensational murder of Anwarul Azim Anar has been unfurling to be interconnected tales of betrayal, greed and gruesome brutality.
“Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen, a citizen of the United States (US) of Bangladeshi origin, assigned the task of killing MP Azim to killers hired for Tk5 crore,” said an official of Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Detective Branch (DB).
The brutal killing of MP Anwarul Azim is suspected to be due to a dispute over the sharing of gold smuggling proceeds.
According to police, Aktaruzzaman Shaheen himself is a gold smuggler and MP Anwarul Azim Anar was allegedly involved with it.
Shaheen and Azim have a joint business in Kolkata.
“The culprits 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,” said an official of the West Bengal CID.
West Bengal CID carried out a comprehensive search of the Bhangar-Polerhat area of the South 24 Parganas district adjacent to Kolkata with Jihad Hawladar, 24, who was arrested on suspicion of being involved in the murder. However, no body parts were found.
They also said Jihad Hawladar is a Bangladeshi national who is a butcher by profession and worked in Mumbai. He is from Khulna and was brought to Kolkata two months before by Akhtaruzzaman, police added.
Kolkata police said the killers had hired butchers from Mumbai for mincing the body.
MP Anar, who went missing in Kolkata on 13 May, was murdered in Kolkata and three people have been arrested so far in this regard, said Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan on Wednesday (22 May).
West Bengal CID has found blood stains inside the apartment of the luxury condominium in New Town on Kolkata’s outskirts, where the MP’s whereabouts were last traced on 13 May.
They also recovered several plastic bags, which they believe were used to dump the body parts.
Search for the missing MP Anar, who reportedly arrived in Kolkata on 12 May to undergo medical treatment, began 6 days later after Gopal Biswas, a resident of Baranagar in north Kolkata and an acquaintance of the politician, filed a complaint with the local police on 18 May.
MP 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.
