The court has allowed Jhenaidah district Awami League general secretary Saidul Karim (Mintu) to be remanded for eight days for questioning in the case of kidnapping and murder of parliamentarian Anwarul Azim.
Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Tofazzal Hossain gave this order on Thursday.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police Crime and Information Department Deputy Inspector (SI) Jalal Uddin confirmed this information to Prothom Alo.
Sources related to the police and the court say that the General Secretary of Jhenaidah District Awami League, Saidul Karim, was produced in the court today and requested to be remanded for 10 days for questioning. In the remand application, it is said that Shimul Bhuiyan, the extremist leader of Khulna region, has given a confessional statement to the court in the case of the murder of Parliamentarian Anwarul Azim. In his statement, the involvement of Anwarul Azim’s murder has come up. In the deposition, Shimul Bhuiyan said that Awami League leader Saidul Karim spoke on WhatsApp with Akhtaruzzaman, the main planner of taking Anwarul to Kolkata on May 5 or 6. Anarul told Azim about the financial transaction subject to the execution of the murder.
It is said in the remand application, during the interrogation, Kamal Ahmed Babu, another Awami League leader of Jhenaidah, told the police that Anwarul had exchanged pictures with Shimul Bhuiya regarding the abduction and murder of Azim. On May 23, Saidul was supposed to take the money from Karim and give it to Shimul Bhuiyan. The court heard the remand application and allowed the accused Saidul Karim to be remanded for eight days and interrogated.
A DB source said Saidul Karim was arrested from under the house of an Awami League leader in 3/A area of Dhanmondi. He was later brought to the DB office at Minto Road.
Anwarul Azim went to Kolkata on May 12 and was murdered in a flat in New Town the next day. Five people, including Awami League leader Saidul Karim, have been arrested in Bangladesh on charges related to this murder. Two others were arrested in Kolkata and Nepal. During the interrogation of the arrested persons, the police came to know that Anwarul Azim was killed in Kolkata due to a dispute over gold smuggling. The main planner of this murder is the brother of the mayor of Kotchandpur Municipality of Jhenaidah, the expatriate Md. Aktaruzzaman alias Shaheen.
According to the intelligence officers involved in the investigation, Aktaruzzaman had hired a killer for five crore rupees to kill the MP. Shimul Bhuiyan, a once violent extremist leader of Khulna region, played a key role in the execution of the murder. Jhenaidah Awami League general secretary Saidul Karim’s name came up in the incident when he was interrogated.