MP Anar murder: Faisal, Mustafiz on six-day remand

A court in Dhaka has placed two suspects arrested in connection with a case filed over abduction and murder of Jhenidah-4 constituency’s MP Anwarul Azim Anar.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Ataullah placed them on remand after the Detective Branch’s Assistant Commissioner Mahfuzur Rahman, also the investigation officer of the case, produced them before the court on Thursday.

Both Faisal and Mustafiz were arrested in Khagrachhari on Wednesday where they had been masquerading as devotees at a remote Kali Temple for 23 days, said Harun or Rashid, additional commissioner (Detective Branch) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

They posed themselves in Khagrachhari as Palash Roy and Shimul Roy, he added.

They were among the seven people present in the Kolkata flat where Azim was killed in May, he said.

The victim’s daughter Mumtarin Ferdous Dorin filed the case on May 22 with the capital’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station.

Detectives learned about their whereabouts on Tuesday, and then caught them in a special drive in Khagrachhari on Wednesday.

Harun later flew back to the capital with the suspects in a helicopter which landed at Purbachal.

Officers have information that Faisal used chloroform to make Azim’s lose consciousness and Mustafiz later stripped him and tied him to a chair, he told reporters.

On May 19, they came back to Bangladesh from Kolkata after the murder and contacted Aktaruzzaman who planned the murder.

“Aktaruzzaman then gave them Tk 30,000. With the money, they went to the remote hilly area,” he said.

A total of nine people have been arrested in Bangladesh, India and Nepal in connection with the killings, he said.

Aktaruzzaman is currently in the US, and the authorities are trying to get him extradited.

Harun reiterated that there was “no pressure” on officers regarding the investigation.

“We are bringing to book only those against whom there is clear evidence. No innocent person will be arrested and no one will get a guilty individual released.”

on Wednesday, detectives with the help of divers and fishermen with nets looked in two ponds of Jhenaidah town for three phones with which Kazi Kamal Ahmed Babu, relief and social welfare affairs secretary of the Jhenaidah Awami League, contacted the assailants, officials said.

Babu earlier told officers that he threw the phones into two ponds to destroy evidence. On June 25, police took Babu to Jhenaidah jail from Kashimpur jail in Gazipur to find the phones.

Police called off the search for the day after two hours.

DB chief Harun told reporters in the town that some valuable information was on the phones.

Slain lawmaker Azim went to Kolkata on May 12, and on May 22, India and Bangladesh police said he was murdered.