‘Murdered’ Bangladesh Awami League MP Anwarul Azim Anar’s body, which was allegedly chopped into several pieces before being disposed of in Kolkata between May 13 and 15, may never be found.
This will create an immediate problem for both the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Bangladesh Detective Branch: no death certificate can be issued, rendering a byelection in Jhenaidah-4 (Kaliganj) constituency impossible for at least seven years.
Bangladesh Detective Branch chief, Joint Commissioner of Police Mohammad Harun-ur Rashid today reiterated in Kolkata that Anar’s body had been chopped into several pieces.
In this context, he hinted that the body may never be found. Rashid’s policing record in Bangladesh is not clean – many of his investigative results are tainted by allegations of extra-judicial measures.
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In the event of Anar’s body or body parts are not found, no post-mortem can be conducted which, in effect, means that his relatives may not be handed over a death certificate. Additionally, the CID will have to wait for at least seven years before a death certificate is issued.
Speaking to Northeast News, veteran Kolkata advocate Nabakumar Ghosh said, “It may take as many as seven years for the issuance of death certificate when a dead person’s body is not available. This is the established law. A seven-year wait is mandatory. No body, no death certificate”.
The only course open to the CID, following the end of seven years, is to file a writ petition in the Calcutta High Court under Section 226 of the Constitution.
The high court may then order a judicial inquiry by a top officer of the administration. Once the inquiry is completed, the high court may issue orders which will be equivalent to a death certificate, Ghosh said.
The advocate said that this step will then have to be followed by issuing advertisements—proclaiming that Anar will never be found – in national newspapers and Doordarshan channels.
This is something that the alleged mastermind of Anar’s murder, his so-called ‘business’ partner and friend, US-based Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen, and the alleged Bangladeshi killers Shimul Bhuiyan and Tanveer, besides 24-year-old butcher Jihad Howladar, did not quite consider before planning and executing the murder.
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While Northeast News’ report earlier today brought to light the many loopholes and inconsistencies in the CID-Bangladesh DB case, the investigators from both the countries will have to wrack their brains over the answers to many of these unanswered questions arising out of the glaring gaps in their narrative.
These gaps appear to be the result of “investigative overreach” and examples that constitute a tendency to introduce seemingly “unlikely, unfounded and unexplained” motives – in this case strong differences between Shaheen and Anar over the proceeds of slush money made through gold smuggling and hundi operations along the India-Bangladesh border.
What has put into serious question the CID and Bangladesh DB’s investigative approach – including Rashid’s claims of the killers smearing Anar’s body part with turmeric powder – is the “over-zealous” manner in which a certain “line of inquiry” was given primacy over other potential ones.
Even the circumstantial evidence now appears to be tainted.
A key element of the popular narrative is that the murder was an outcome of the differences between Anar and Shaheen, reportedly over the spoils of their illicit border business.
This appears to be motivated. Financial dealings gone wrong can always be corrected and one (errant) side can make compromises to buy peace, irrespective of the amount of money in question.
But what could have possibly necessitated the chopping up of a body – Anar was bulky and his body weight could not have been less than 80 kg – unless the objective was to make it “disappear”? What caused such brutality?
Even more startling is the disinclination on the part of the two agencies – the CID and the Bangladesh DB – to seek the custody of the arrested persons in Kolkata and Dhaka.
A CID team was in Dhaka for three days but it made no application in the designated court there to seek Bhuiyan, Celeste Rahman and Tanveer’s custody.
While a team of Bangladesh DB officers led by Rashid are in Kolkata, it remains to be seen whether Howladar’s custody will be sought by them.
