Speaking near the mosque next to his rented home where he recently converted to Islam, the residents of Munshipara described the 65-year-old Japanese man who was brutally gunned down on Saturday as a kindly man.
For most of the time they had known him, he had been known to his neighbours as Hita Kuchi.
The people he lived among recall a man who spoke little Bangla but nevertheless always tried to communicate with his neighbours. They recall that his broken Bangla made the children laugh.
It was only after his murder and the ensuing press coverage about him that Munshipara’s residents learned that Hita Kuchi’s real name was Hoshi Kunio.
A female neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: “He was a very good person who respected everyone, including the children, around him.
“We knew him as Hita Kuchi. It was on the television that we learned that his original name was Hoshi Kunio.”
But as of the 27th of Ramadan, Hoshi had acquired yet another name: Golam Kibria. Maulana Siddiqur Rahman officiated at Hoshi’s conversion to Islam at the mosque near Hoshi’s rented flat.
The mosque’s muezzin, Taijul Islam, said he had seen Hoshi take part in Maghrib prayers. He said Hoshi had taken the name Golam Kibria upon converting.
Asaduzzaman Lenin, another resident, recalls that he had seen Hoshi at the Eid prayer this Eid -ul-Azha. He said he learned about Hoshi’s conversion at the Eid prayers.
Hoshi’s neighbours ask why the murderers killed their Hita Kuchi? They ask how Muslims can kill a man who came to this country, found it congenial and just three months ago became a Muslim?
The sexagenarian was in the habit of taking a walk every evening. He bought bananas from the corner shop and tried to speak to the local children in Bangla, sometimes offering them chocolates or bananas. He also tried to teach them Japanese.
Hoshi first visited Bangladesh in 2011 for a week. He visited again for a week in 2013 before finally deciding to live in the country this year.
Since foreign citizens cannot remain in Bangladesh for more than three months at a stretch without a work permit, he left and re-entered the country to renew his visa status, visiting China and, most recently, India, according to a police source.
Farming in a Rangpur village
Neighbour AKM Zakaria, who rented Hoshi his flat, said Hoshi was a researcher who came to Bangladesh to conduct research that would have been very costly in Japan.
Police sources said Hoshi had taken Tk1,06,000 from Zakaria’s younger brother, Mison. They said it was through Mison that Hoshi had made arrangements to come to Bangladesh.
Hoshi began farming this year in Kachu Alutari village on 0.8 hectares of land leased from three brothers – Shah Alam, Shajahan Mia and Jahangir Alam.
Humayun Kabir Hira signed the agreement on behalf of Hoshi.
It says, Hoshi leased the land for Tk82,000, paying a Tk42,000 down payment on May 7 and the remaining Tk40,000 on July 15. Village resident Abdul Jabbar said Hoshi visited his farm every day, measuring the grass he was growing and occasionally weeding the plot. Hoshi told him the grass was growing more quickly in the soil of Rangpur than expected.
During this period, the grass had grown more than three feet but would not have grown more than one or two feet in Japan, Hoshi had told him.
Police sources said Hoshi was not a wealthy man who had come to Bangladesh to improve his condition, adding that the relatively low cost of living in Bangladesh and its rich soil drove him to try his luck here.