The Bronx husband who flew off to Bangladesh after his wife mysteriously disappeared had purchased tools that could be used to dispose of a body — including “a cutting instrument,” the New York Daily News reports.
A police source told the paper that Mohammad Chowdhury, 38, bought the equipment just before he fled the country.
“Certainly if we can find him we want to ask what did you use these things for?” the source said.
Chowdhury’s purchases were revealed as the search for his wife Mahfuza Rahman, 30, continued.
Associate nurse Mahfuza Rahman left Bellevue Hospital on December 8 and has not been seen since, though her ID card was used a day later at Hunter College, where she is studying to be a registered nurse, Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.
Chowdhury told neighbours that his wife had gone back to Bangladesh because his parents were in a bad car accident and were fighting for their lives. He then took their 9-year-old daughter to Bangladesh, cops said.
But a NYPD detective spoke to the parents, who said they were not in an accident.
"His story to them was that he went to look for her [because] she had gone missing," said Deputy Chief Jason Wilcox, head of Bronx detectives. "So that story runs counter to what he told the hospital police."
The husband, meanwhile, still has not spoken to police since arriving in Bangladesh after he and the couple's 9-year-old daughter left New York on December 14 aboard an Emirates flight and grabbed a connecting flight in Dubai.
The Bronx husband who flew to Bangladesh after his nurse wife disappeared is not answering calls from the NYPD, police said.
"We haven't contacted him yet," Boyce said. "He's not picked up his phone."
Boyce also said Rahman gave her travel agent a return date of February 2, then later changed that to May 2. The same agent, and immigration authorities, Boyce said, have no record of Rahman leaving the United States.
Concern about Rahman's whereabouts started on December 14.
That's when two hospital cops went to the couple's Kingsbridge Heights home, where Chowdhury told them about the "accident." The cops looked around the home, saw nothing unusual and left after taking a picture of his license so they could confirm he was who he stated, Boyce said.
Chowdhury left for Bangladesh later the same day.
Last Friday, worried because Rahman hadn't returned to work in March, as Chowdhury had promised, Bellevue contacted the NYPD.
Boyce said detectives from the 52nd precinct, Missing Persons and Homicide are involved and that Bangladeshi authorities could be asked for help as the case develops.
After Bellevue contacted the NYPD, police rushed to the family's home on E 198th St, took the door down for fear Rahman was in danger and looked for signs of a crime.