Body disposed of between 8pm & midnight on May 14-15: Cops
Times of India | 26 May 2024
Kolkata: Investigators hunting for the dismembered parts of Bangladesh MP Anwar Azim Anar that were dumped in the Bagjola canal suspect butcher Jihad Hawladar carried out the disposal in the late evenings when the area was deserted.
Locals who had converged at the spot in Jirangachha village near Hatisala where Jihad claims he disposed of the body parts, possibly sometime on May 14-15, said the locality gets deserted around 8 pm but returns to life after midnight when a wholesale vegetable market springs up at Gachtala, around 150 m from the suspected dump site.
The location where cops have been searching since Thursday evening is around 12 km from the complex in New Town where the murder took place on May 13 and 7 km from Bhojerhat. Fishermen’s nets were cast in the murky water on Saturday afternoon after divers were unable to view anything in the turbid water.
Sources said Jihad had picked the spot carefully after conducting multiple recce in and around Bhangar that included the sparsely populated wetlands to the east of Kolkata where he could dump the chopped up body parts without arousing suspicion.
According to police sources, Jihad, who is currently in CID custody, came to Kolkata in March-beginning, shortly being recruited to dispose of Azim's body after the murder. He had put up in a flat in Chinar Park’s Atghara and had stayed there for two-and-a-half months before reaching the triplex apartment in Sanjeeva Garden on May 13, the day of the murder.
While the rented flat where the murder took place was spread across three floors, the owner — an assistant commissioner of the state excise department — had rented out only the lower two floors to Bangladesh-born US citizen Md Akhtaruzzaman alias Shaheen for Rs 1 lakh a month.
The sole CCTV camera in the apartment located in the kitchen was covered with a dark cloth by Celesty Rehman on May 7, six days before the murder. Celesty is the woman who enticed Aziz to come to the flat where he was killed within 15 minutes of arriving around noon on May 13.
Prior to the camera being blacked out, it captured images of Celesty cooking meals and a couple of other men washing utensils and dumping waste.