Police have arrested a 23-year old Bangladeshi youth with suspected links to killing four members of his family, including parents, in Canada.
The incident took place at a house in the Markham suburb of Toronto around 3pm (local time) on Castlemore Ave on Sunday, according to York
Police spokesman Andy Pattenden.
The arrestee has been identified as Menhaz Zaman, son of Mohammad Moniruz Zaman who migrated to Canada decades ago from Tangail in Bangladesh. Menhaz along with his mother Momotaz Mukta Zaman, sister Malesa, 21, and grandmother lived in the house.
Menhaz was charged with four counts of first-degree murder appeared calm in court Monday, days after a player in an online gaming forum messaged others saying he’d dropped out of university and felt like a “pathetic coward subhuman” who’d disappointed his parents, according to The Star, a Canadian newspaper.
York Regional Police charged him after four bodies were found at the house on Sunday afternoon. The police haven’t confirmed the identities of the victims or their relationship to the accused but did say they are three women and a man.
The Star has seen images of messages posted on the Discord forum “Perfect World Void” that were sent to a user who often played online games with a player using the name “Menhaz.”
Discord is an online community used by millions of people around the world to communicate about their favourite games. The Star is choosing not to publish the disturbing messages in full.
The postings describe that he lied to his parents about going to university, and dropped out of a mechanical engineering program after failing classes in his first year. He became depressed, and lost faith in God.
“For three years Ive (sic) been telling my parents i go to uni, when actually I was just hanging out at the mall four days a week,” the screenshots said.
“I don’t want my parents to feel the shame of having a son like me.”
The user, based in Israel, who provided the screenshots to the Star, said people on the forum became alarmed by the private messages and attempted to contact police.
A “Perfect World Void” forum post, titled the “Markham Massacre,” said the user going by the name “Menhaz” had been a long-time online game player, according to the Star.
The post said his alleged actions shocked and saddened other players.
“We thank the anonymous player who had the cleverness to trace his address, and the braveness to immediately report it to the local cops. Thanks to this act, it is highly possible that some lives have been saved.”
The forum post added that the user “Menhaz” had been depressed and “more offensive than usual” on Discord and that the alleged crimes had “nothing to do with Perfect World or us at all.”
Closer to home, Ammara Riaz, a former tenant of the Zaman family, said she never would have expected the young man to be accused of such crimes.
Riaz, who rented one of two basement apartments in their home for about five to six years until she moved out last year, confirmed that the people living in the house were Moniruz Zaman, his wife Momotaz, their daughter Malesa and son Menhaz, as well as a grandmother whose name Riaz didn’t know. Riaz couldn’t confirm the spelling of the names, but she did confirm that a profile photo on the gaming site was that of Menhaz.
Police have not confirmed that the family members are the victims.
“He was such a nice, quiet, calm guy,” Riaz said of Menhaz. “I saw that guy all the time helping his parents.”
Riaz said when she first heard the news, she was “shocked” and convinced an outsider must be responsible because there was no way one of the family members could have committed such an act.
Then she heard Menhaz was accused.
