The Bangladesh police will seek Interpol’s help to catch the alleged mastermind behind the murder of the Awami League MP Mohammad Anwarul Azim Anar, the chief of the detective branch of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Mohammad Harun-Or-Rashid, said in Calcutta on Sunday.

The officer reached Calcutta during the day in connection with the investigation into the murder.

Anar was allegedly killed in an apartment in Rajarhat on May 13. According to sleuths, Akhtaruzzaman Shahin, a US-based businessman from Bangladesh, was the mastermind.

CID officers involved in the investigation said Jihad Hawladar, the butcher who had allegedly been hired to kill the MP and chop off his body into pieces, had told the cops that a large quantity of cotton was purchased to wipe off blood stains.

“According to his statement, the body was left inside the bedroom of the Rajarjat apartment for a few hours on May 13. It was dragged into the washroom in the evening, where four men chopped the body into small pieces,” said a CID officer.

The Bengal police were yet to find any body parts till Sunday evening.

CID sleuths have learnt that Jihad, who officers said was an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh and had settled in Mumbai, and another accused had left the apartment building in Rajarhat with a trolley bag containing the MP’s body parts.

“They hired a cab to reach Krishnamati village in Bhangar in South 24-Parganas. But the duo alighted from the vehicle around a kilometre from their destination and walked a few hundred metres into a side road to reach a swamp, where the body parts are said to have been disposed of,” said an officer.

“A CCTV camera installed in the locality has captured the movement of two persons, one of whom appears to be Jihad. We have seized the footage.”

The detective department chief from Bangladesh told reporters at the Calcutta airport that the Bengal CID has “progressed a lot” in the inquiry following the arrest of Jihad.

“The CID has already progressed a lot with the arrest of Jihad. Just like a team from the Bengal police went to Bangladesh and examined the accused in our custody, we will seek the police’s permission to examine Jihad. We want to help the Bengal police in their investigation,” Harun said.

He added: “The mastermind, the beneficiary and the execution team members, all are Bangladeshis. The murder was planned in Bangladesh but executed in Calcutta. We will visit the place of occurrence and the spot where the body is suspected to have been disposed of. We have got a lot of information from Amanullah (who is in the custody of the Bangladesh police).”

Harun said they have found that Shahin, the alleged mastermind, had left the Rajarhat apartment on May 10, three days before sleuths suspect the MP was killed in the flat, and returned to Bangladesh.

“Then he went to Delhi and then to Kathmandu. After that he went to Dubai and then maybe to the US. As the crime happened here, we will solicit the Bengal police’s help to jointly seek Interpol’s help in catching the mastermind,” Harun said on Sunday.

Harun led a four-member Bangladeshi police team that visited the Bengal CID headquarters in Bhabani Bhavan on Sunday evening.