A member of parliament from Bangladesh has been killed in Kolkata. It is being said that the main person behind the killing is an expatriate Bangladeshi living in the US, who was also a close friend of the MP.
This is the first time than one of our lawmakers has been killed outside of the country. Earlier, member of parliament from the Lakshmipur-2 seat, Kazi Shahid Islam, was convicted by a Kuwaiti court and sentenced to four years imprisonment on charges of money laundering and human trafficking. He is still in jail there. These two incidents are a reminder of the nexus between politics and the criminal world.
On 13 May the member of parliament from the Jhenaidah-4 constituency, Anwarul Azim, was brutally killed in Kolkata. It was a cruel and distressing incident. He had gone to Kolkata on 12 May for medical treatment.
According to intelligence sources, Akhtaruzzaman, the Bangladeshi expatriate living in the US, rented a house in New Town, Kolkata for the purpose of killing Anwarul Azim. Anwarul was cleverly taken to that house where he was murdered by hired killers. One of the killers was Amanullah (actual name Shimul Bhuiyan), who had in the past been a leader of the extremist organisation Purbo Bangla Communist Party (ML). Those who had once been involved politics of social revolution to destroy class discrimination, are now hired killers!
The nexus between politics and the criminal underworld in Bangladesh goes far back. There was a time when Bangladesh's top terrors would stay in Kolkata. Now they have spread out all over the world and control the underworld here from there. On 19 May Prothom Alo ran a report, ' Top terrors still control Dhaka crime world from abroad'.
The political rise of Jhenaidah-4 MP Anwarul Azim was by means of switching parties and entering the sphere of power. Back in 1988 he entered politics through Abdul Mannan, once a BNP leader and later an Awami League MP. In 1992 he was elected as councillor of the Kaliganj pourashava as a BNP leader.
In 1995 Abdul Mannan left BNP and joined Awami League. Anwarul followed suit. When the BNP-Jamaat coalition came to power in 2010, Anwarul went to India.
There are over 9 cases against him on charges involving firearms, explosives, narcotics and gold smuggling. During the caretaker government time, in 2007 Interpol even issued a red alert against him.
When Awami League came to power in 2009, Anwarul Azim returned from "exile". He had sought Awami League nomination in 2008, but was not nominated. Abdul Mannan was nominated. In 2014, Azim was nominated and Mannan was deprived. It was then that conflict emerged between the two. After Abdul Mannan passed away, it was Azim who became an unchallenged leader of a section of Awami League politics in Kaliganj and Jhenaidah.
He was elected as member of parliament from Awami League in the 10th Jatiya Sangsad election in 2014, in the 11th JS election in 2018 and the 12th JS election in 2024, from the Jhenaidah-4 seat. In this span of time he amassed huge wealth.
Speaking to Prothom Alo's Jhenaidah correspondent Azad Rahman on Friday about the reaction of the local people, it was learnt that Azim had been popular as a people's representative in the area. He would help people in times of need. He would often take his motorbike and go around to people's homes. But he also had a bad reputation because of his political opportunism and his border-centered trade and business. Before entering politics, Anwarul ran a VCR-VCD business. He would import VCR and VCD from Japan and sell them in India. That is how he grew a bond with Indian businessmen.
How were the MP's relations with Akhtaruzzaman? Azad replied that they were very close friends. They both played football well. Azim later became active in politics and Akhtaruzzaman went off to America with a DV visa.
According to intelligence sources, Akhtaruzzaman was an expatriate in the US but his main business was gold smuggling. He would bring gold from Abu Dhabi and sell it in India. Anwarul Azim would assist him in this work. Recently the MP filched a few consignments worth around 2 billion taka (200 crore taka). It was for this money that Akhtaruzzaman killed the MP in a planned manner. Another sources said that friend Shaheen owed MP Azim a huge sum of money. He may have killed Azim in order to pocket the money.
Salahuddin Ahmed and Anwarul Azim may be from different parties, but they are politicians and lawmakers of our country. If any of them go abroad and are mistreated or killed, that is nothing to be proud of. It is humiliating for Bangladesh.
Anwarul Azim was a lawmaker. His brutal murder must be brought to justice. At the same time, the link between political and the criminal underworld must be exposed. That will be possible when the main accused Akhtaruzzaman can be brought under the law. Our law enforcement agencies arrested those involved in the killing very speedily. The Indian law enforcement also nabbed to of the accused. One of them is a Bangladeshi national. The Indian national is a driver.
The murder of Anwarul Azim points to many weaknesses in our state machinery. We saw how any person can make a passport under any name under the nose of the administration. They can manage to get visas. The killers can cross the border whenever they want in order to carry out the murder, and then return home unhindered when the job is over.
So are all these security arrangements, all this strictness, only for the common people? The same applies to Indian visa. People have to wait for days even for a medical visa. But the killers got their visas so easily. Some of the killers went without any visa or passport. How is that possible?
Remember how the main accused in the Narayanganj seven-murder incident slipped across the border after the killing? At the insistence of Bangladesh he was later pushed back.
Needless to say, the killing of Anwarul Azim has badly tarnished Bangladesh's reputation abroad. After this, the Indian police administration will perhaps view Bangladeshi nationals with even more suspicion. Many people won't want to rent their houses to Bangladeshis going to India for medical purposes.
Incidents in our politics often become the centre of discussion and debate, Anwarul Azim's murder was no exception. BNP's secretary general Mirza Fakhrul questioned why the close friend India could not provide security to the Awami League MP? Awami League's general secretary came up with a counter question, why did India keep BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed there with such "care and affection"?
Both questions are erroneous. Salahuddin Ahmed and Anwarul Azim may be from different parties, but they are politicians and lawmakers of our country. If any of them go abroad and are mistreated or killed, that is nothing to be proud of. It is humiliating for Bangladesh.
We hope the politicians do not sacrifice the country's interests in the interests of the party.
* Sohrab Hassan is joint editor of Prothom Alo and a poet
* This column appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir