Thirteen days after Bangladesh Awami League MP Anwarul Azim Anar was allegedly murdered in an upscale Kolkata neighbourhood, cracks have begun to appear in the accounts of the two countries’ law enforcement agencies investigating the sensational case.
Indeed, the accounts are riddled with several holes that raise a series of glaring questions. While the Bangladesh Detective Department, led by Joint Commissioner Mohammad Harun-ur Rashid is probing one part of the case, the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is seeking to investigate the Kolkata part of the alleged murder.
However, the two departments are aiming to mount a joint probe.
But the over-eager teams appear to be in a blinding hurry to put out stories and accounts that have thrown up more questions than satisfactory, fool-proof, coherent and seamless accounts and evidence leading up to the alleged murderers.
While three of the alleged murderers were arrested in Dhaka, one person — a butcher from Mumbai — was nabbed in Kolkata. One other person — a cab driver — was detained in the Bengal capital.
The butcher: The alleged murderers supposedly had the butcher, Jihad Howladar, a Bangladeshi living in Mumbai illegally for an unspecified number of years, travel to Kolkata.
He supposedly cut up the body, knifed out the flesh from the bones, chopped the bones and the skull into smaller parts and possibly helped clean up the spot where Anar’s body was placed before it was wholly cut into small pieces and stuffed into bags.
What mode of transport did the butcher use to travel from Mumbai to Kolkata? Did he fly or take the train? Who booked his ticket? Shouldn’t the police provide a copy of the ticket?
Why did 24-year-old Howladar stay behind in Kolkata when the other three accomplices, excluding Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen, had already left for Dhaka? Why did he not leave for Mumbai immediately after the ‘job’ was done? Why did he wait for the CID sleuths to arrest him? Why did he not cross the border to reach his original homeland? Where was he hiding before the CID investigators arrested him?
More importantly, the CID officers did not name the area in Mumbai where he had supposedly been living “for years”. TV interviews of Howladar’s father and wife at Barakpur village under Digholia police station in Khulna district suggested that he was simply away and not necessarily in a foreign city such as Mumbai.
Never did Howladar’s father or wife indicate that he lived in Mumbai.
Equally baffling is the CID’s silence on the kinds of identity documents they may or may not have found on Howladar’s person? What identity documents did he produce at the airport or on train?
Why was Howladar supposedly paid a paltry sum of Taka 5,000 by Shaheen? Wasn’t this a rather small amount for doing the grisly job of cutting to pieces a human body? Was he paid in Indian currency and in cash or was the money transferred to his account digitally?
The CID claims that Howladar accompanied the other accomplices — except Shaheen who had already flown out of India on May 10 — to throw away the body pieces in different parts of Kolkata. This was not his remit. So why was he taken along when it would have made abundant sense to let him go his way?
When he reached Kolkata, did Howladar carry his deadly cleaver and knives along with him from Mumbai? How were these sharp-edged weapons allowed onto the flight or train?
Why were they not detected at Mumbai airport or railway station? Or were the knives or cleavers purchased in Kolkata? If yes, which shop were these purchased from?
Sanjeeva Gardens: The CCTV footages released by the CID showed four persons, including a woman, entering the lift with their luggages and then leaving the lobby again with their bags and suitcases. How is it that Anar did not feature in any of the CCTV grabs? Was he at all brought to Sanjeeva Gardens or taken elsewhere?
TV camera footages (seen on electronic media) showed the building (triplex) exterior and the lift lobby but not the security guards at the entrance. Did the alleged killers enter their names, phone numbers, flat number and other relevant details in the register maintained by the security guards? Have the guards been examined by the CID detectives?
It was not the CID sleuths but the Bangladesh DB investigators – notably the outfit’s chief Mohammad Harun-ur Rashid – who claimed that the killers had applied turmeric powder on the cut-up body pieces before supposedly disposing them off.
From which store was the large quantity of turmeric powder purchased? Or did Rashid cook up a fanciful story to ‘make’ the murder appear macabre, enough to keep people wondering for days on the gruesomeness of the supposed killing?
While Howladar was arrested after three Bangladeshis were picked up in Dhaka, there is still no trace of the owner of the Sanjeeva Gardens apartment, Central Excise officer Sandeep Roy, who supposedly let out the place to Shaheen? How did Shaheen spot Roy? Shouldn’t the CID by now have obtained/seized a copy of the rent agreement between Shaheen and Roy?
Hasty action: Curiously enough, the three Bangladeshis – Celeste Rahman, Shimul Bhuiyan and Tanveer – were arrested by the DB less than 12 hours after the CID said the murder had been committed in the Sanjeeva Gardens apartment supposedly rented out to the alleged mastermind Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen.
It all appeared to be too quick. The DB hardly had to sweat much before effecting the arrests. And soon enough, Howladar was nabbed.
The crime scene is at Sanjeev Gardens in New Town and it must get primacy for the alleged murder was committed there. And yet, CID officers rushed to Dhaka to confer with DB counterparts.
More importantly, they did not bother to travel to Jhenaidah to search and examine Shaheen’s sprawling farmhouse at Kot Chandpur.
While the CID is yet to dig up any information on where Shaheen stayed when he travelled to Kolkata in late April or early May, the investigating agency has shown little interest so far to bring the three Bangladeshis to Kolkata and produce them before the designated court to seek custody for interrogation.
It remains to be seen whether the Bangladesh DB will show any interest in taking custody of Howladar, after producing him in a Kolkata court, in pursuit of the investigation.
The Northeast News’ inquiries in Kot Chandpur show that Shaheen or some person on his behalf sold of 150-200 cattle heads that he owned and kept at his farmhouse about a month before the alleged murder.
lso sold off were several large swans. But four or five German Shepherd dogs that Shaheen possessed were not sold away.
The Bangladesh DB has provided dates when Shaheen left the country to fly to Nepal and then onward to the US. But the crime detecting outfit is yet to provide any details on the flights that Shaheen availed to leave Bangladesh and Nepal.
The agency is silent on which state in the US he is a resident of and flew to from Dhaka.
Neither the CID not the Bangladesh DB have produced any evidence or come up with information on the motive for the murder. So far, and as part of a whispering campaign, it has been suggested that differences between Shaheen and Anar over the proceeds from the ‘syndicate’s’ illegal activities – gold smuggling and hundi operations along the India-Bangladesh border – they were a part of may have led to the MP’s murder.
