The illicit proceeds of gold smuggling, hundi operations and, importantly, huge amounts of election nomination-related bribe money, appear to be deeply related to the alleged ‘murder’ of Bangladesh Awami League MP Anwarul Azim Anar in Kolkata.
Government and political sources on both sides of the India-Bangladesh border revealed strictly on conditions of anonymity that Anar “had tried the patience” of important and influential people in Dhaka, Jessore and Magura, especially on the issue of “settlement” of a massive sum of money that he “was sitting on for a while” and was refusing to share with other beneficiaries heading different ‘syndicates’.
The Bangladesh Detective Branch has claimed that Anar was murdered in a New Town flat in Kolkata before his body was chopped into several parts, skinned, deboned and smeared with turmeric powder and allegedly disposed of.
No body part has yet been found in Kolkata, although West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) sleuths have found traces of blood in the apartment at Sanjeeva Gardens in New Town.
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The most immediate reason for ‘murdering’ Anar – there is still no clarity on how he was killed, if at all he was killed, and how his body was “made to disappear” by allegedly chopping it to pieces – was a dispute over distributing or returning several hundred crores of slush money collected by him from electoral aspirants before the nomination process ahead of Bangladesh’s January 7 parliamentary ‘election’.
It is now emerging from various reports, especially in Dhaka, that two former MPs, one from Jessore and the other from Magura, reportedly met Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen, said to be the alleged mastermind of Anar’s ‘murder’, in early May at a Gulshan house in the Bangladesh capital.
Northeast News is withholding the names of these two MPs for legal reasons and in the interest of the ongoing investigations being pursued by the Bangladesh Detective Branch and the West Bengal CID.
While this indicates the two former MPs, who have been beneficiaries for some years of gold smuggling activities on the India-Bangladesh border, they are also suspected to be ‘claimants’ to the proceeds of illicit payments linked to electoral nominations involving the Awami League.
“Anar was refusing to part with their share and wanted to keep the whole of the amount to himself,” sources in Bangladesh familiar with the issue, said.
The Bangladesh Detective Branch led by its Additional Commissioner Mohammad Harun-ur Rashid, who, intriguingly publicly shared the gory details of how Anar’s body was dismembered and hastily narrated the manner in which turmeric powder was applied to the body parts, betrayed an instance of introducing red herrings.
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“Rashid was over-eager to spell out the body chopping angle. This was also meant to prepare the people at large that Anar may not be alive. He appears to have jumped the gun and was in too much of a hurry to come out with a particular narrative. Police investigations are all about possibilities and not about foreclosing other facts and possibilities,” a Bangladeshi official said, adding that “it is surprising how and why the West Bengal CID is going along with this narrative when there are gaping holes in the one put out by Rashid.
For the record, a three-member Bangladesh DB team led by Rashid is in Kolkata to supposedly investigate the baffling Anar case.
Even more intriguing is the reference to Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen’s alleged travel to route to reach the US where he lives in New York.
It is said that Akhtaruzzaman went to Nepal first before taking a flight to Dubai and onward to the US.
What necessitated a visit to Nepal? Did he fly to Nepal or did he take the road route to that country? Was he accompanied by some other person or persons?
These are questions which are key to unravelling the Anar ‘murder’ case.
What will also be important is whether the CID and Bangladesh Detective Branch officers will visit Nepal to verify the presence there of Akhtaruzzaman before he left that country.
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Political sources in Bangladesh said that Anar ‘acted’ as the ‘cashier’ for all ill-gotten money that used to be distributed among senior Awami League politicians involved in the multi-crore gold and diamond smuggling and hundi ‘business’ rackets.
“He was considered to be trusted until he betrayed this by refusing to distribute the money,” a source said.
Meanwhile, Shahiduzzaman Selim, the mayor of Kot Chandpur in Jhenaidah district in Bangladesh and Akhtaruzzaman’s elder brother, said that he last met the latter “before the beginning of Eid fasting in April”.
Selim admitted that he knew Akhtaruzzaman was in Dhaka and that he had an apartment in Gulshan and was “building a new one” in another part of the city.
Selim claimed that he had “no knowledge” of what business Akhtaruzzaman was involved in.
However, a “few years ago when I asked him once, he only mentioned that he exported pulao rice from Bangladesh to the US,” Selim said, adding that his younger brother has been living in New York for several years with his family.
