NEW DELHI: Hours after the Bangladesh government declared on Wednesday that Awami League MP, Md Anwarul Azim Anwar, who went missing from Kolkata on May 13, was “brutally murdered” in the city, the West Bengal police said that investigations into the case of the politician’s killing has been taken up by the state CID.
Stating that the police had “reliable inputs” that Anwar “may have been murdered”, Akhilesh Chaturvedi, IG, CID, said the police were yet to recover the victim’s body.
“We had no prior intimation of the Bangladeshi MP’s arrival to this city. We came to know about him after his acquaintance in Kolkata, Gopal Biswas, filed a missing diary on May 18. A Special Investigation Team was formed by the Barrackpore police commissionerate to trace the missing politician.
“We were in the middle of that investigation when, on May 20, we received an intimation from the Ministry of External Affairs and today an input that makes us suspect that the victim may have been murdered,” Chaturvedi said.
Reports said the 56-year-old Bangladesh Awami League MP came to Kolkata on May 12, crossed through Darshana border, and went to live with a friend Gopal Biswas.
He used to travel to India often, as he had a diplomatic passport so he could come in without applying for a visa. He generally came into Kolkata by land. He is survived by two daughters and his wife who claim that in his recent trip to India he came for an ear treatment.
According to a source, the MP got involved in drug trade around 1986 when the Jatiya Party was in power. He used to smuggle goods through the Baghda border in India to the Baghavanga border in Bangladesh. In 1991, he got involved in gold smuggling and in 1996, he was allegedly involved in arms smuggling. He is also an accused in a murder case and arrest warrants were issued for him in 2009.
However, he was acquitted from the cases in 2012 due to political considerations.
A team of officials from the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate arrived on Wednesday morning at the designated apartment in New Town and were conducting investigations inside till reports were last received.
In his complaint, Biswas stated that Anwar left the Baranagar residence to keep a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon of May 13 while stating that he would be back home for dinner.
Later that day, Biswas alleged, he received a WhatsApp communication from the MP’s phone stating he would be moving to Delhi on some urgent work and that his host need not call him up. On the morning of May 15, the complainant stated he received another communication from the victim confirming he reached Delhi and was ‘flanked by VIPs’.
‘For medical treatment’
The search for the missing MP, who reportedly arrived in Kolkata on May 12 to undergo medical treatment, began six days later after Gopal Biswas, a resident of Baranagar in north Kolkata and acquaintance of the Bangladeshi politician at whose house the latter had put up on arrival, filed a missing person complaint with the local police on May 18.
(With inputs from agencies)