Staff Reporter :
Japanese citizen Kunio Hoshi was buried at Munshipara graveyard in Rangpur at dawn on Tuesday, after 10 days of his murder in a village near the Rangpur town.
He was buried as per the Islami Sharia, bringing all the speculation and imagination to end.
Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Priyosindhu Talukder told the media that Hoshi was buried at 4:30AM as per the instruction “from the higher authorities.” The local administration said, his funeral and burial were completed in touch with the Japanese embassy. The local administration, however, maintained absolute secrecy until Tuesday noon.
“He was a Muslim. That is why the Japanese embassy requested the Home Ministry to bury him in Rangpur,” Deputy Commissioner of Rangpur Rahat Anwar said. The burial process was initiated after the home ministry’s instruction on Monday, he said. According to Sharfuddin Ahmed, Mayor of Rangpur City Corporation, Hoshi became Muslim. “From the documents we have in our hands, he was a Muslim,” the mayor said. The Mayor said that the administration took the permission from him for the burial of Hoshi at 2am. The representatives from the Bangladesh and the Japanese governments attended the prayers on the premises of Rangpur Medical College Hospital before burial.
The representatives from the district administration, the police and the mayor’s office were also present during the whole process of the burial. Kunio came to Bangladesh in August this year. He used to live in a rented house in the town’s Mun shipara. The Visa was valid till April 13 in 2016. Munshipara residents claimed that Kunio became Muslim three months ago. In the morning of October 3, Kunio Hoshi, 65, was gunned down in broad daylight by unidentified miscreants riding on a motorbike in the Kachu Alutari area of Kawnia upazila in the district on his way to his farm and since then the body was preserved in the morgue of Rangpur Medical College Hospital.
Later, both the Hoshi’s family members and the Japanese government gave green signal to the Bangladesh authorities for the burial and the local administration in consultation with the Japan embassy in Dhaka completed the task as per the direction from the Home Ministry.
Investigators arrested two and detained six people, including Hoshi’s friends in the locality and questioned several others, but failed to find any clue to the killing yet.
