The police in both Bangladesh and India have confirmed that Jhenaidah-4 MP Anwarul Azim Annr was murdered in Kolkata.
However, his body has not yet been found. Mysterious details about the murder and the perpetrators have surfaced in the media. Kolkata CID and Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) are still searching for the body.
Concerns about legal complications have arisen given that the body remains undiscovered.
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Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury said that without the body or an official declaration of death, Anwarul Azim Anar's seat in parliament cannot be declared vacant.
Concerns about the murder trial have also surfaced if the body or its parts are not found. However, lawyers assert that it is possible to prosecute a murder charge without a body, citing legal precedents. The death, however, must be confirmed.
Anwarul Azim Anar entered India from Kaliganj in Jhenaidah on May 12.
On May 22, media reports surfaced that MP Anar was murdered in a flat in New Town near Kolkata. Blood traces were found inside the flat, but a body was not recovered.
Kolkata Police found 4kg of flesh in the septic tank of the building where MP Anar is believed to have been killed. DNA tests will confirm if these remains belonged to the Bangladesh lawmaker. His daughter, Mumtarin Ferdous Dorin, is preparing to go to Kolkata to provide DNA samples.
Separate cases have been filed in India and Bangladesh regarding the murder. Several suspects have been arrested and remanded. Some have already started giving statements in court.
However, it is unclear if the murder trial will proceed without confirmed body parts.
What lawyers say
Supreme Court lawyer AKM Fazlul Haque Khan Farid said that the DNA report is crucial for the murder trial. The law mentions the need for a postmortem report, or it must be proven in court that the body was not found.
Barrister Taposh Kanti Ball, another lawyer at the Bangladesh Supreme Court, emphasized the importance of finding the body in a murder trial. In the absence of a body, death must be proven beyond reasonable doubt through use of body parts, DNA, or murder weapons.
He said: “A piece of flesh has been recovered in this case, and matching the DNA with Anar's daughter is necessary. Even without a body, the court must be convinced beyond any doubt. There have been cases in Bangladesh where individuals presumed dead returned after several years, so claims of death must be thoroughly proven.”
Previous cases
Although it is unusual, there has been an instance of a court delivering verdict in a murder trial without finding the body.
In 1981, the Supreme Court of India ruled in the “Ramananth and others vs Himachal Pradesh” case that a prosecution could proceed without a body if circumstantial evidence strongly suggested the person's death.
Barrister Taposh said that the murder of MP Anar can be prosecuted based on this precedent, given that the Bangladeshi judicial system considers Indian case precedents.
