B'desh MP murder: Police may conduct DNA test of blood found in New Town flat

PTI, KOLKATA, May 28, 2024 : The Bangladesh Police will be conducting DNA tests of the blood specimen found in a flat in New Town near here and match the results with that of one of the relatives of Bangladesh MP Anwarul Azim Anar to confirm that the politician was murdered, an officer said on Tuesday.

It is suspected that Anar, who has been missing for a fortnight, was killed in that flat and his body parts were thrown into a canal.

The DNA tests would be conducted as the last option in case the body parts of the Awami League MP could not be found, an officer of the Dhaka police visiting Kolkata as part of the investigation said.

“In case the body parts are not found, then we will conduct DNA tests on the blood samples and match the result with the DNA of one of Anar’s family members to establish the identity and start a case according to the law,” the officer said.

A three-member team of Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Detective Branch is in the city to investigate the death of Anar. The team is being led by the Detective Branch chief Mohammad Harun-or-Rashid.

The Disaster Management Team of the Kolkata Police on Tuesday resumed search in the Bagjola canal adjacent to an amusement park near Rajarhat, an officer said.

Kolkata Police officers, however, said that finding the body parts would be a tough job due to heavy rainfall following Cyclone Remal on Monday.

“It’s been over a fortnight that the crime was carried out. The body parts were chopped into smaller parts and there was a high chance that those were eaten up by aquatic animals. The Bagjola Canal has dirty water and the body parts could be swept away by the flow,” the police officer said.

Divers were employed to spot the body parts as well as the murder tools from the canal, he added.

Assuming that blood was drained out from the bathroom of the flat, where the lawmaker of the Bangladeshi ruling party, was suspected of being murdered, a team of police officers were testing the drain pipes, he said.

The search for the missing MP, who reportedly arrived in Kolkata on May 12 to undergo medical treatment, began after Gopal Biswas, a resident of Baranagar in north Kolkata and an acquaintance of the Bangladeshi politician, filed a complaint with the local police on May 18.

Anar had stayed at Biswas’s house upon arrival.

In his complaint, Biswas stated that Anar left his Baranagar residence for a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon of May 13 and that he would be back home for dinner.

Biswas claimed that the Bangladesh MP went incommunicado on May 17, which prompted him to file a missing complaint a day later.