The West Bengal CID on Thursday afternoon arrested a person for his alleged involvement in the “murder” of Bangladesh MP Anwarul Azim Anar, an officer said. Anar, who went missing in Kolkata on May 13, was found murdered and three people have been arrested, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said on Wednesday.
According to an official, the detainee, who resides in an area of West Bengal close to the international border with Bangladesh, had met one of the main accused in the murder case, PTI reported. Further investigations are underway to determine the reason for their meeting and what they discussed, the officer said, without revealing the identity of the detainee.
According to a PTI report, police suspect that the MP might have been “lured” to an apartment in Kolkata’s New Town area and then murdered by hired killers.
An initial investigation also found that a close friend of the MP, a US citizen, had paid around Rs 5 million to those involved in the crime, the senior police officer said. The Awami League MP’s friend owns an apartment in Kolkata and is probably currently in the United States, he said.
Police also said that the apartment in Kolkata’s New Town area, where the Bangladesh MP was last seen entering, was rented to his friend by its owner, an employee of the excise department. “The investigation indicated that the Bangladesh MP fell into a honey trap set by a woman who was also close to the victim’s friend. The woman allegedly lured Anar to the New Town apartment. We suspect he was murdered soon after “I went to the floor,” he said.
The CID is examining the CCTV footage that showed Anar entering the apartment with a man and a woman, the officer said. “It was a well-planned murder. An old friend of the MP paid a huge amount of money, around Rs 5 million, to the contract killers to carry out the crime. Further investigation is underway,” he said. “In the CCTV footage, the politician was seen entering the apartment with the two people. The duo was later seen leaving and re-entering the apartment the next day, but the MP was not seen again,” the officer told PTI.
Police said the duo was later seen leaving the apartment with a large suitcase on wheels. The state CID, which is investigating the case, found blood stains inside the New Town apartment and also recovered several plastic bags, which they believe were used to dump the body parts.
Circumstantial evidence indicates that the MP was first strangled and then his body was cut into several pieces, police claimed. “We suspect that after killing Anar, the killers mutilated the body, separated the flesh from the bones and mixed them with turmeric powder to slow decomposition. Then, the body parts were probably put inside plastic bags, as well as in the wheeled bag, and scattered in different places. We also suspect that some parts were kept in a refrigerator and we have collected samples,” the officer said, adding that the body parts were being searched.
Messages were also sent from his mobile phone to some of his contacts asking them “not to contact him as he was traveling to Delhi”. “It appears that these messages were sent from the parliamentarian’s mobile phone to confuse his family and friends and prevent them from launching a search…there is a possibility that these messages were sent after his murder,” he said. .
The search for the missing MP, who reportedly arrived in Kolkata on May 12 for medical treatment, began after Gopal Biswas, a resident of Baranagar in north Kolkata and an acquaintance of the Bangladeshi politician, lodged a complaint with the local police on the 18th. of May. Anar had stayed at Biswas’s house upon his arrival. In his complaint, Biswas claimed that Anar left his Baranagar residence for a doctor’s appointment on the afternoon of May 13, although he claimed that he would return home for dinner. Biswas claimed that the Bangladesh MP lost communication since May 17, prompting him to file a missing person complaint a day later.
