TDS Desk:

The Criminal Investigation Department of India’s West Bengal has arrested a butcher named Jihad Hawladar suspecting his involvement in the murder of Jhenaidah-4 MP Anwarul Azim Anar.

Several Indian news publishers reported that Jihad had disclosed shocking details of the gruesome murder of the MP during the CID’s interrogation after his arrest in West Bengal state’s Bangaon on Thursday.

Citing the CID, Anandabazar and NDTV said Jihad confessed that Anar was first strangled to death. His body was then cut up into small pieces and the bones and the flesh were separated.

The killers later removed the skin and applied turmeric to the body parts so that if anyone asked about what they were carrying, they could say it was meat for cooking.

The investigators were told that parts of the body were disposed of in many locations.

Citing West Bengal CID, Anandabazar said Jihad was taken to a location in Bhangar after his arrest on Thursday. He had told them that parts of Anar’s body were dumped there after the killing, but authorities found no evidence at the place.

Law enforcers may request a 14-day remand for Jihad, Anandabazar said.

The 24-year-old Jihad is a Bangladeshi national, the report claimed. He trespassed to India and was brought to Kolkata from Mumbai by the accused two months before Anar’s murder.

Jihad admitted that he had committed the crime under instructions from a suspect named Akhtaruzzaman, a Bangladeshi-American.

Apart from Jihad, four other Bangladeshi accomplices helped Akhtaruzzaman carry out the murder.

Anar was the president of the Kaliganj Upazila unit of the Awami League and won his third consecutive term in parliament in January by running on the party ticket. Anar had travelled to India for medical treatment on May 11.

He had been staying with a friend named Gopal Biswas. Biswas filed a general diary at the police station on May 18 after Anar went missing.

As investigations were underway in both countries, the news of Anar’s killing was published by Kolkata media outlets on Wednesday. The reports said his body was found in a multi-storey apartment block in the city’s New Town area.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan later confirmed the killing, but said a body had not been found.

The Detective Branch of Bangladesh Police arrested three suspects over the incident. The arrestees are Amanullah alias Shimul Bhuiyan, Shilasti Rahman and Faysal Ali alias Saji.

On Thursday, a team of three detectives from India arrived in Bangladesh and spoke to the suspects as part of their investigation into the murder of the MP in Kolkata.

At a media briefing on Thursday, the DB unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police said Akhtaruzzaman alias Shaheen had masterminded the murder and it was carried out by Amanullah alias Shimul, an extremist leader from the Khulna-Jashore region.

Additional Commissioner Harunor Rashid, the chief of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Detective Branch, said:“The suspects provided similar information to DB officials and the detectives from India.”

“And based on the information provided by the suspect arrested in India, the law enforcers of that country are trying to retrieve Anar’s body or parts of his remains from different places.”

Harunor said Akhtaruzzaman and the others had plotted the murder in meetings in Gulshan and Baridhara a month ago.

He said it was difficult to recover the lawmaker’s body as it was dismembered in small pieces and dumped.