Bangladesh MP missing from Kolkata for 8 days said to be killed

KOLKATA: A Bangladesh MP who came to Kolkata earlier this month for medical treatment and then went missing is said to have been murdered.

Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said in Dhaka on Wednesday that three persons had been arrested in Bangladesh for the murder of Anwarul Azim Anar, 56, in Kolkata. The MP's body, however, has not been found yet.

"Azim was murdered in a planned manner in a house in Kolkata. Police forces of both India and Bangladesh are working simultaneously to unearth the motive behind the murder and who the culprits are. We are following all international protocols to get to the bottom of this," Khan said, adding that "people of our country are involved in the killing".

A three-time Awami League MP, Azim had reached Kolkata on May 12 and put up with long-term associate Gopal Biswas in his house in north Kolkata's Sinthi.

According to Biswas, he left the following day in a car saying he was going for a medical check-up but did not return. Over the next two days, Biswas and Azim's daughter in Bangladesh received text messages from Azim saying he was in Delhi on work. But when they failed to get in touch with Azim the in the following two days, Biswas filed a missing complaint with police on May 18. The Barrackpore Police Commissionerate formed an SIT to trace the politician after an MEA input on May 20 said the MP had possibly been murdered.

Police on Wednesday said the MP was murdered in an upscale gated community with duplex flats in New Town. The flat is owned by an employee of Bengal excise department, Sanjib Ghosh, who had rented it out to one Akhtaruzzaman, a US national.

A team including state police and officials from central agencies reached the New Town flat on Wednesday to conduct a search. They found blood stains in the flat but there was no body. CCTV footage showed Azim entering the complex with three persons, two men and a woman, on May 13 but he was not seen exiting. The two men and the women were seen exiting at different times between May 13 and 15 - two of them were seen leaving with big bags. Akhilesh Chaturvedi, IG of state CID, confirmed that police were yet to recover the MP's body.

According to sources, Azim had several business interests, including that of transport. In 2008, Interpol had issued a notice against him in connection with several criminal cases but he was cleared of the charges after he became an MP in 2014.


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