Bangladesh Awami League MP Anwarul Azim Anar (56), who was murdered in a slick apartment in upscale New Town in Kolkata on May 13 – the body is being suspected to have been dismembered – was said to be “extremely close” to a first cousin of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, investigations by the police on either side of the international border have revealed.
West Bengal police detectives declared on May 22 that Anar’s body was likely chopped into pieces. No body part has yet been found.
While there is no direct evidence that Sheikh Hasina’s cousin, himself an Awami League MP from a district in the Khulna Division, was in anyway involved in the murder, Anar’s association was based on the proceeds of gold smuggling which has been rampant and unchecked along the India-Bangladesh border for years together.
Bangladeshi sources said that Anar was also closely linked to a Barisal MP Hasnat Abdullah who is into sand mining and gold ‘business.
What has stunned Indian and Bangladeshi investigators is that Anar was murdered in the midst of the ongoing parliamentary elections on this side of the border.
The elections in West Bengal are being conducted over seven phases with two rounds to be held on May 25 and June 1. Bongaon, a border town in North 24 Parganas, and an important centre in the gold smuggling network, went to the polls on May 20 in the fourth phase. Sitting BJP MP Shantanu Thakur, who is a central Minister of State, is seeking re-election from this constituency.
Anar was elected MP from Jhenaidah-4 constituency (Kaliganj) on an Awami League ticket in 2024. He was previously elected MP from the same constituency in 2018 and 2014. Anar’s criminal past tumbled out following his gruesome murder, with documents revealing that he was, at one time, wanted by Interpol.
This cousin’s name – his identity is being withheld for legal reasons – figures in secret files of Indian security and investigating agencies which, for years, have been keeping close tabs on the multi-crore gold smuggling racket and the political links of the kingpins on both sides of the border.
Just as Anar had a protector in Hasina’s cousin, at least one Indian MP from West Bengal is suspected to be a beneficiary of the gold smuggling racket.
The murder was contracted to Shimul Ahmed, alias Aman, a former Communist Party member, who is known to be a ‘lieutenant’ of this cousin, sources in Jhenaidah and Khulna said.
While the Kolkata Police and the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) are pursuing a joint investigation, Delhi-based BSF officers suspect that the Shahdat gang operating in Jhenaidah in Bangladesh “may have had something to do with Anar’s murder”.
These BSF sources suspect Anar’s hand in the murder of Shahdat’s brother-in-law some three to four months ago in Kolkata.
Investigations by Northeast News suggest there are other “mid-level” operatives such as Gautam Mandal, Barik Biswas and Shankar Auddyo who owe allegiance to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) even as they operate with impunity in Bengal’s North 24 Parganas and Nadia districts.
These names feature multiple times in confidential files and documents, but little action has been taken by the West Bengal police.
“All Indian agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau, are fully aware of these individuals and their gold smuggling operations,” a top BSF officer said on conditions of anonymity.
The extensive gold smuggling racket operating on both sides of the India-Bangladesh border was the subject of an extensive BSF study last year. It found that Kolkata is a “major centre” in this entirely illegal trade, with North 24 Parganas and Nadia being the “key zones” of activity for the smugglers’ gangs.
While Anar’s entry into the world of crime and associated illegal activities, including gold smuggling, went back to 1986, he “solidified” and “smoothened” his activities around 20 years ago when he drew close to and befriended an Indian gold smuggler by the name of Subhash Agarwal who was based out of Majhdia in Nadia district. “Anar’s closeness with Agarwal led to his association with Gopal Biswas of Mandalpara Lane in Baranagar in North Kolkata,” a senior officer said.
When Anar entered India after crossing the border at Darshana (in Bangladesh; opposite Gede in Nadia) on May 12, he first went to Biswas’ house. Anar left Biswas’ house on May 13 and was never seen again.
After piecing together Anar and Biswas’ mobile phone records, investigators have been able to ascertain that he was waylaid and taken to the New Town apartment, owned by a Central Excise official identified as Sandeep Roy who had let it out to Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen, a Bangladeshi who planned and got the murder executed but was not present at the crime scene. Shaheen is a resident of Kot Chandpur in Jhenaidah and operated several casinos and dealt in drugs. He has business links in the US.
While Shaheen and two of his associates, suspected to be involved in the murder, have been arrested by Bangladesh law enforcement authorities, Indian detectives have picked up two persons on this side of the border. These two likely carried the body parts in bags out of the New Town apartment.
In his statement to the police, accessed by Northeast News, Biswas, a gold jeweller, said that Anar had told him that he would head for New Delhi on May 13 to meet “important” people there. It is suspected that a Bangladeshi woman, identified as Shilasti Rahman, was used as a “honey trap” to entice Anar to visit the New Town apartment which is within Sanjeevni Gardens building complex.
Investigators suspect that Anar was murdered on May 13 itself, the apartment was cleaned up and the body parts were stuffed in bags and taken elsewhere a day later. A few messages that were sent out to Biswas from his phone – he had two mobile phones on his person when he left Biswas’ home – are suspected to have been sent out by his murderers who are said to have been paid Taka 5 crore for the ‘job’.
While the BSF is aware of Anar’s association with Sheikh Hasina’s first cousin, Delhi-based sources in India’s border guarding force said that the “illegal trading and transport of gold from the Middle East to Bangladesh is controlled by this person”. A couple of years ago, this person purchased a gold and diamond store in Dubai from an Indian national. He operates a diamond cutting unit in Rajasthan’s Jaipur and a diamond store in Dhaka’s Gulshan.
Last year, the BSF conducted a clandestine operation that began in Dubai and ended in parts of Bangladesh and India. The operation revealed that 223 passengers on a particular Dubai-Dhaka flight were paid Taka 5,000 each to act as gold couriers. Each passenger was handed out four to five gold biscuits to take to the Bangladeshi capital.
An indepth and prolonged study by the BSF threw up startling results: in 2022 and 2023, as much as 37,000 kg and 42,000 kg gold entered India illegally from Bangladesh. This year, the volume of gold that is estimated to enter India illegally could touch as much 60,000 kg.
“This massive volume over three years indicates that black money is converted into gold, which is then smuggled into India, primarily West Bengal, by Bangladesh,” a senior official said.
Speaking to Northeast News, a Bangladeshi investigator said that a Kolkata-based ‘businessman’ identified only as ‘N Roy’ is closely linked to the gold smuggling racket. ‘Roy’, who migrated to West Bengal many years ago from Narail district in Bangladesh, is influential and runs several businesses allied to gold smuggling such as cross-border hundi money transfer. He is known to host senior BJP leaders.
