Even as the Detective Branch of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police has ‘spun’ a gruesome story involving the alleged ‘murder’ of Bangladesh Awami League MP Anwarul Azim Anar in Kolkata last month, evidence – or the lack of it – suggests that only part of the crime may have been committed in a New Town apartment of the city.
Northeast News’ investigations in Kolkata have revealed that four of seven Bangladeshi nationals, alleged to be involved in Anar’s murder in a well-appointed apartment at Sanjeeva Gardens in the city’s New Town neighbourhood on May 13, lived as paying guests at three properties not very far from the upmarket residential complex.
While West Bengal police sources revealed that one of the paying guest accommodations was at Chinar Park, the four Bangladesh nationals – Mohammad Siyam Hossain, Faisal Bhuiyan, Mustafizur Rahman and Jihad Howladar – had their food at Trishiv Hotel near Tank No. 3, Street 33, Action Area 1 in New Town.
“All four would have their meals at Trishiv Hotel,” a police officer said, adding that West Bengal CID sleuths investigating the alleged ‘murder’ have visited the paying guest accommodations as well as Trishiv Hotel and verified the presence of the four accused persons.
While the West Bengal CID’s inordinate delay in submitting an application before a Barasat court to seek judicial approval for a DNA test on the ‘flesh’ recovered from the Sanjeeva Gardens sewer tank is being seen as “shockingly surprising”, it is now emerging that the alleged ‘murder’ may not have taken place at the Sanjeev Gardens apartment (No. 56 BU).
West Bengal police sources said that their counterparts in the CID “appear to be playing along with the Bangladesh Detective Branch in a bid to turn the investigations in a different direction”.
The sources indicated that it was likely that two teams of Bangladeshi nationals were involved in executing the operation to ‘murder’ Anar. While Bangladeshi-American national Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen, supposedly well-known to Anar and the MP’s so-called ‘business partner’, hired the Sanjeeva Gardens apartment, the other principal accused Shimul Bhuiyan, Tanvir and Celeste Rahman actually took possession of the flat on April 30.
These three were subsequently joined by Howladar, who was in ‘hiding’ in Kolkata after allegedly committing a murder in Khulna in March 2023, Siyam Hossain, Faisal Bhuyian and Mustafizur Rahman.
Siyam, who was an employee of Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen in Kotchandpur (Jhenaidah) was handed over to the West Bengal CID by the Nepal Police a day after he was arrested at Kathmandu airport on June 7. Howladar was arrested surprisingly quickly in Kolkata on May 23, a day after the West Bengal CID revealed that Anar had been murdered.
Northeast News visited Sanjeev Gardens complex on June 29 and made a thorough inspection of the basement from where about 4 kg of some ‘flesh’ was pulled from two sewer tanks (with four over-ground openings covered with lids). This particular apartment is between two duplex flats which are occupied by residents. A lift with collapsible gates can be used to reach the basement where residents’ vehicles are parked.
The passage in the basement parking lot begins where the inclined road at the entrance ends. Apartment 56 BU’s car parking space is earmarked. A black car marked ‘West Bengal Government’ – presumably the official vehicle used by the landlord, Sandip Roy, who rented the apartment to Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen, stood in the allotted space.
But residents disclosed that during the time Shimul Bhuiyan, Tanvir and Celeste Rahman lived in the apartment, one vehicle hired by them – in all probability a red Maruti Swift car – would be parked in the space allotted for apartment 56 BU.
Could it be that Anar was likely made unconscious by being administered chloroform, which is a general anaesthetic, euphoriant and a sedative, before he was bundled into a car in the basement and driven out of Kolkata to some other unknown destination? The length of the parking space is CCTV-covered and yet no video clip of this part of the basement was released by the West Bengal CID.
A photograph of a naked Anar, tied up and muzzled in a swivel chair, was leaked to the Bangladesh media after Jhenaidah district Awami League General Secretary Saidul Karim Mintu was arrested by the Detective Branch.
The photograph showed that Anar’s lower arms (from the elbows to the wrists) were tied with ropes to the chair’s handrests.
Now, Detective Branch officers, including its chief Harun-ur Rashid, and the West Bengal CID were instrumental in filming a video showing the sleuths of the two organisations asking leading questions related to the alleged ‘murder’ to Howladar.
But this video, which filmed the bed in which Anar was supposedly smothered to death with a pillow, failed to show the swivel chair – an important piece of evidence.
And yet the photograph, when it reached different media houses, was found to have been carefully Photoshopped. The background and other elements had been ‘wiped’ clean.
Was this photograph taken in a location other than apartment 56 BU? Detective Branch chief Harun-ur Rashid mentioned the chair – as an afterthought – long after he had reached Dhaka following his Kolkata visit between May 26 (Sunday) and May 29, that it was purchased for Rs 17,000. But he chose to not disclose the name and location of the store in Kolkata.
Northeast News’ inquiries in Kolkata revealed that the West Bengal CID seized four vehicles, including the red Maruti Swift, which was used to pick up Anar from his Baranagar-based long-time associate Gopal Biswas, and a dark grey Honda Amaze. These were used by the accused persons from time to time for travelling in and around Kolkata.
