Dhaka: Bangladesh’s police recovered the bloodstained body of a prominent Hindu lawyer who went missing last week and arrested four people, including his wife, suspecting their link to the murder. Ratish Chandra Bhowmik, who fought the state’s case in high-profile murder trials against Islamist extremists, went missing after he left his home in northwestern Rangpur district last week.
When the 58-year-old lawyer did not return home and his mobile phone was found switched off, his family went to the police and the Hindu community leaders. “Their confessional statements led us to the body from an under-construction building near Bhowmik’s own house,” said Benazir Ahmed, DGP anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion.
He added that the lawyer’s wife, a school teacher, and one of her arrested colleagues were directly involved in the murder pointing figure to their extramarital relations. Police earlier had launched a massive campaign amid huge protests to trace out Bhowmik suspecting militant links to his disappearance on early Friday as he fought major murder trials against them as a key prosecution lawyer.
Police said the mobile phone records gave them the clue to the murder leading to his wife’s arrest. Bhowmik’s disappearance came two weeks after seven operatives of outlawed Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) were sentenced to death for murdering the caretaker of a Sufi shrine in November 2015. Earlier, he had appeared as a key prosecutor against five JMB extremists, who too were sentenced to death for the murder of Japanese farmer Hoshi Kunio in the same year.
