Police recovered the bodies of five people, including a woman, from separate locations in the capital on Saturday.
The bodies were recovered between morning and afternoon and sent to the Dhaka Medical College (DMCH) Hospital morgue for autopsies.
The deceased included lawyer Mohammad Anwar Hossain, whose decomposed body was recovered from Lalbagh, three unidentified men in the Shahbagh area, and the dismembered remains of an unidentified woman in Adabor.
At around 10am, police recovered Anwar’s decomposed body from a rented room on the second floor of a house at 10/1, Lane 3, Bow Bazar in Shahidnagar, Lalbagh.
Police officials suspect he may have died two to three days earlier, possibly from an electrical short circuit or a stroke. The exact cause of death will be determined after an autopsy, they said.
House owner Monir Hossain said Anwar had rented the room for Tk4,000 earlier this month and lived there alone.
Police recovered his driving licence, which listed his address as 312 Jagannath Saha Road, and are trying to contact his relatives.
Anwar was an advocate at the Judge Court and had a chamber at Room 214 on the first floor of the Dhaka Bar Association Annex Building.
Lalbagh Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Mohammad Jamil Hossain said Anwar had been living there as a bachelor. Police were trying to contact his family after verifying the information on his driving licence.
Meanwhile, police recovered the bodies of three unidentified men in separate incidents in the Shahbagh area.
At around 11:50am, police recovered the bodies of two men from the pavement near the main gate of the National Eidgah and the Kadam Fountain intersection. One was around 65 years old and the other about 45. Their identities could not be known immediately. Police said both appeared to be vagrants.
Acting on information from pedestrians, Shahbagh police SI Toufiq Hasan went to the spots and recovered the bodies. They were sent to the DMCH morgue at around 12:30pm.
Later, a third unidentified man, aged around 70, was found lying near the waiting area of Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Police said he was also believed to be a vagrant.
DMCH Ward Master Ayub Ali found the man lying in front of the waiting area and took him to the emergency department, where an on-duty doctor declared him dead at around 3:15pm after examination. His body was later sent to the morgue for an autopsy.
In another incident, police recovered the dismembered remains of an unidentified woman from a canal in the Hakkar Mor area of Adabor-10 on Saturday afternoon.
Adabor Police Station OC Zahidul Islam said police recovered the remains after receiving information from local residents. The remains had been packed in a sack.
The woman was wearing a maroon top and olive-coloured trousers. Her severed hands, along with the sleeves of her clothing, and her severed head and torso had been placed in a black bag and dumped in the canal. Her legs have yet to be recovered.
The woman's identity could not be immediately confirmed. Police are investigating the motive and those responsible for the killing.
OC Zahidul Islam said efforts were underway to identify the perpetrators and unravel the circumstances surrounding the murder. A CID forensic team is also working to identify the victim.