Even as investigations into Awami League’s Jhenaidah-4 MP Anwarul Azim Anar’s alleged ‘murder’ assumed political dimensions, the Bangladesh Detective Branch today took in for interrogation the party’s Jhenaidah district General Secretary Saidul Karim Mintu.
Mintu, considered to be a powerful and influential Jhenaidah district political leader, was picked up from an Awami League’s party office in Dhaka’s upscale Dhanmondi neighbourhood this afternoon.
Both Awami League and Bangladesh police sources confirmed to Northeast News that Mintu was taken away from party’s Dhanmondi office on Road Number 3.
Mintu is a resident of Jhenaidah but worked closely with Dhaka-based top-level Awami League leaders, including MPs. Awami League sources feared Mintu’s “imminent” arrest.
Mintu’s interrogation by the DB, which is investigating Anar’s alleged ‘murder’ in a Kolkata apartment on May 13, has sent shock waves through the Awami League across Bangladesh.
There are indications that other senior Awami League leaders might also be “involved” in the conspiracy to have Anar killed in Kolkata where he reached on May 12.
Northeast News, which reported on June 10 that the Anar’s alleged ‘murder’ had taken a political turn, has reliably learnt that one of the alleged killers in Kolkata, Shimul Bhuiyan alias Amanullah had shared a photo of the Awami League leader, lying unconscious and naked in the New Town apartment, to a Jhenaidah-level party leader Kazi Kamal Ahmed Babu.
Today, Bangladesh Police and Awami League sources confirmed to Northeast News that Babu, in turn, shared the incriminating photo with Mintu.
DB officers, who have been interrogating suspects extensively and intensively in Dhaka over the past two weeks, said that Mintu was among Awami League leaders who “have amassed massive wealth”.
Babu, the Awami League’s Jhenaidah district joint general secretary, was arrested by the DB on June 8. He was produced in a local court which remanded him in police custody for 10 days.
This, the sources said, could be linked to widespread and rampant cross-border (Bangladesh-India) gold smuggling that was in Anar’s control since at least 2014.
The Detective Branch is trying to find out if Anar’s murder is linked to Awami League leaders who sought to wrest the multi-crore illicit gold smuggling activities from the MP’s control.
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Jhenaidah was agog this afternoon of Mintu’s ‘arrest’ by the DB, but Northeast News was able to confirm from district-level party sources disclosed “that he (Mintu) had been taken in for questioning around 4 pm”.
Mintu was at the Awami League’s Dhanmondi office when he was told to leave the location before he was picked up by a posse of DB sleuths.
Detective Branch sources said that New York-based Akhtaruzzaman Shaheen, said to be the alleged mastermind of Anar’s ‘murder’ had instructed one of the supposed killers, a former extreme Left leader from Jhenaidah, Shimul Bhuiyan alias Aamanullah, to collect Taka 2 crore from Babu.
While it is not clear whether this amount is linked to Anar’s alleged ‘murder’, several messages exchanged between Bhuiyan and Babu over WhatsApp over May 15 and 23 indicate that it might be “hit money”.
But whether the money was Babu’s or how he may have received it and from whom is still not clear even as the investigation now appeared to have veered onto a political course.
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Sources said that Bhuiyan returned to Dhaka on May 15 following the ‘killing’. He was allegedly told by Shaheen to pick up the money from Babu.
The following day, Babu and Bhuiyan spoke over WhatsApp. The duo met up on the Bhanga expressway in Faridpur on May 17 when Babu said he would pay him the money on May 23.
And in the event he failed to make the payment on May 23, the next date for handing over the money was fixed for May 26.
However, their plans went awry when the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department declared on May 22 that Anar might have been murdered.
Babu allegedly went into hiding. Meanwhile, it has emerged that before his arrest, Babu destroyed three mobile phone handsets that he used and lodged a General Diary report at Jhenaidah police station.
The alleged killers supposedly stripped him of his clothes and took pictures of his body, which were then shared via WhatsApp by Bhuiyan with Babu.
The photos were shared with Babu for him to ‘show’ them to at least one senior central Awami League leader who has so far not been named by the DB.
Babu and Shaheen are cousin brothers. Shaheen supposedly shared Babu’s mobile number with Bhuiyan before the alleged ‘murder’.
