Bangladesh MP murder: Dhaka to seek Interpol help in tracing 'mastermind'

Bangladesh will seek help from Interpol to bring back the fugitive alleged mastermind of the brutal killing of ruling Awami League MP Anwarul Azim Anar, who was found murdered in Kolkata last week, a top official said in Dhaka on Sunday.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police's (DMP) detective branch chief Mohammad Harun-or-Rashid made the announcement while speaking to media at Dhaka's Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Sunday before leaving for Kolkata to investigate the murder case.

Anar, a three-time parliamentarian from the Jhenaidah-4 segment and also the president of the Awami League's Kaliganj sub-district unit, left Dhaka on 12 May for medical treatment in Kolkata, from where he went missing the very next day.

The search for him began after Gopal Biswas, a resident of Baranagar in north Kolkata and an acquaintance of the Bangladeshi politician, filed a missing person complaint with the local police on 18 May.

According to Kolkata Police, circumstantial evidence indicated that the MP was first strangled to death, and his body was then dismembered and dumped in different areas. Several of the body parts are yet to be traced.

"We will seek help from Interpol to bring back Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen, the mastermind of MP Anwarul Azim Anar's murder," said Harun, who is also additional commissioner of DMP.

Harun also said an application will be submitted through the inspector-general of police for the repatriation of Shaheen, a childhood friend of the slain MP and a US citizen.

A three-member detective branch team left Dhaka for Kolkata on Sunday to join the investigation into the murder. Harun said the detective branch team would first visit the murder scene in Kolkata and interrogate Jihad Haoladar, a Bangladeshi national working in Mumbai as a butcher, who was arrested from West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district in connection with the murder. A Bangladesh court on Friday sent three more suspects to eight days' police remand for their alleged involvement in the murder.

In a new twist to the ongoing probe, West Bengal CID officials on Saturday claimed that a gold smuggling angle could be a possible reason behind the killing. Investigators said an alleged rift over gold smuggling between Anar and Shaheen, who was his business partner, could be the cause of the crime.

Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan had earlier named a businessman as the key suspect in Anar’s murder and added that his ministry was working with India and the US to put the accused on trial.