The CID identified the accused as Jihad Hawladar, 24, a resident of Barakpur in Bangladesh’s Khulna district, and said that he confessed to smothering and killing the MP along with four other Bangladeshi nationals. The accused removed the MP’s skin to hide his identity, the CID said.

Hawladar was brought to Kolkata two months ago at the behest of Mohammad Akhtaruzzaman, a US citizen of Bangladeshi origin, the alleged mastermind of the MP’s ‘murder’, the CID alleged. Sources said that Hawladar was staying illegally in Mumbai.

Hawladar will be presented before a court in Barasat and taken into police custody to verify his statement. The MP’s body is yet to be found.

The Dhaka police have arrested three people who allegedly told the police that the MP had been murdered. Anwar’s body has not been found yet.

The Awami League MP came to Kolkata for treatment on May 12. He first went to Mondolpara Lane in Baranagar to meet his friend Gopal Biswas, a gold trader. On May 13, he left Biswas’s residence and went to the New Town flat he had taken on rent. He went missing from there.

After he went missing, his family members in Bangladesh filed a missing complaint. Biswas filed a missing complaint in Kolkata on May 18.