Kolkata: The gruesome murder of Bangladesh’s Awami League MP Anwarul Azim Anar has sent shockwaves across India and Bangladesh as West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) arrested a butcher, Jihad Hawladar, from North 24 Parganas district Thursday.
A day after the arrest, 24-year-old Hawladar, an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh, was sent to 12-day police remand by a city sessions court for the alleged murder, conspiracy, destroying evidence and misleading the probe with false evidence.
Bangladesh’s Jhenaidah-4 lawmaker and president of Awami League’s Kaliganj sub-district unit, Anwarul Azim Anar, crossed the Darshana border and entered West Bengal on 12 May.
The MP’s friend, Gopal Biswas, filed a missing report on 18 May at Baranagar police station after Anar went missing on the intervening night of May 13-14. The police added the section for murder in the FIR on 21 May.
According to the CID, Hawladar allegedly skinned the Bangladesh MP, separated his flesh from the bones, chopped him into pieces, packed it in small plastic bags and then disposed of the bags across Kolkata.
Following his arrest, the accused was taken around the city’s outskirts to identify where the bags were disposed of. The CID engaged divers to search the Bagjola Canal and used drones to search for evidence in this high-profile case. The CID has recovered one bag from Bhangar near Kolkata but forensic reports are awaited to ascertain if it is human flesh. The team is likely to search more places Saturday along with the accused.
On Friday, the CID’s counsel informed the court that Hawladar, who worked at a meat shop in Mumbai, arrived in Kolkata in March with the suspected intent to commit the murder. He allegedly scouted the location and planned the execution meticulously, the counsel added.
Meanwhile, the CID team has seized CCTV footage from a high-rise — registered in thje name of one Sandeep and his wife — that purportedly shows two men, one with a blue stroller and the other with multiple bags, entering and exiting the building. The probe agency is analysing the footage to track their movements.
According to CID sources, the deceased MP was lured and taken to a high-rise in Kolkata’s suburb. The investigation so far suggests that a Bangladeshi woman, Shilashti Rahman, allegedly “honey-trapped” the MP and took him to the high-rise before he was butchered.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Police have arrested Rahman and two other suspects, Tanvir and Shimul Bhuiyan alias Amanullah Aman, in the murder probe. Rahman has been sent to a 10-day police remand. A team of West Bengal CID has travelled to Bangladesh to question the three arrested in Dhaka, CID sources told ThePrint.
The Bangladesh Police suspect MP’s close friend Akhtaruzzaman Shahin — a US citizen born in Bangladesh — to be the mastermind behind the murder.
In Bangladesh, the deceased MP’s daughter, Mumtarin Ferdoush Dorin, told the media during a vigil rally Friday that she could not imagine the brutal way her father was butchered. “I want to touch my father once. After killing him, he was cut into pieces. What was my father’s fault?” she said, demanding the arrest of Kotchandpur municipality mayor Shahiduzzaman Selim, the brother of alleged mastermind Akhtaruzzaman Shahin.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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