Gold smuggling racket behind Bangladesh MP’s murder in Kolkata?
The accused persons have claimed during interrogation that the victim and the prime accused were into gold smuggling.
The sleuths of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Detective Branch probing the murder mystery of Bangladesh member of Parliament (MP) Md. Anwarul Azim suspect that the victim and the prime accused Aktaruzzaman Shahin, who is now absconding, were into gold smuggling and the two business partners had fallen out over sharing of profits, people familiar with the matter said.
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“The accused persons have claimed during interrogation that Azim and Shahin were into gold smuggling and some problem had cropped up between the two long-term partners over profit sharing. We are verifying their statements,” a senior officer of the Detective Branch said on the condition of anonymity.
Azim had come to India on a personal visit on May 12. He had been putting up in the house of his long-term friend Gopal Biswas, who runs a jewelry business. He left Biswas’s house the next afternoon and was reported missing on May 18. On May 22, officials of both West Bengal and Dhaka confirmed that he was murdered.
While the Dhaka police have arrested three persons, police in West Bengal arrested one person. Meanwhile a four-member CID team from West Bengal reached Dhaka earlier this week to interrogate the three accused persons arrested by Dhaka police.
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“The accused have claimed during interrogation that while Aktaruzzaman smuggled gold into Bangladesh from Dubai, Azim ensured its safe passage and that it reached the right persons. Recently there were some problems between the duo which led Aktaruzzaman to feel that he was being backstabbed by Azim,” a police officer said, requesting anonymity.
The sleuths in Dhaka who produced the three arrested persons before the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court in Dhaka on Friday also stated in the remand application that it was a business fallout which led to the murder. HT has a copy of the application.
The Bangladesh police have also not ruled out the involvement of a few other influential businessmen who had business rivalries with Azim.
The Dhaka police had earlier said the murder was planned two to three months ago and that those involved held multiple meetings at Shahin’s houses in Gulshan and Basundhara areas in Dhaka.
The murder was committed in a posh residential society at New Town in Bidhannagar where Shahin had taken a duplex on rent. Shahin and three accused persons - Amanullah Syed (56), Tanvir Bhuiyan (30) and Celesty Rahman (22)- who are now in custody, started staying in the house from April 30 finalising the murder plan.
Shahin left New Town on May 10, just two days before Azim reached India. It was Shahin who called Azim and asked him to reach Kolkata for a business deal. Before leaving New Town, he assigned the task of executing the murder plan to Syed.
“Investigation has revealed that the mastermind, Aktaruzzaman Shahin, has fled to the USA. After leaving India on May 10, he came to Bangladesh. He left Bangladesh and went to Delhi; after a two-hour transit he went to Kathmandu, from where he flew to USA via Dubai.”
Meanwhile, the CID with the help of Dhaka police have been able to identify the spot in the eastern fringes of Kolkata where the victim’s body parts were dumped.
Butcher who helped dismember Bangladesh MP’s body held, say cops
A Mumbai-based professional butcher, who was roped in to skin and dismember the body before they were disposed of, was arrested by the CID on Thursday.
“After Azim was killed, his body parts were cut into pieces, put in polythene bags and then put in trolley bags. They were dumped in the canal,” said a police officer adding that polythene bags and gloves were recovered from the New Town flat.
Till Saturday, however, the cops were yet to recover any of the victim’s body parts.
