Cyprus police have claimed to have unravelled the mystery of Bangladeshi student Shahriar Ahmed Emon’s murder nine days after he went missing in the eastern Mediterranean island nation.
Investigators say a dispute over sharing a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot on a bus led to the killing of the 22-year-old.
On Tuesday, local media reported that the accused Bangladeshi national, identified as Shahin Babu, 22, confessed during police interrogation after a court granted an eight-day remand.
According to police testimony, Shahin had been living illegally in the Greek Cypriot-controlled part of Cyprus after crossing from northern Cyprus.
He told investigators he first met Emon on Jun 7 while travelling on a bus.
Emon had asked him to help find work and the two exchanged phone numbers.
Shahin claimed he later asked Emon to share his phone’s Wi-Fi hotspot during the journey, but Emon refused and insulted him, leading to an argument.
Police say Shahin subsequently plotted revenge.
Investigators believe he bought a knife from a supermarket on Jun 9 and, two days later, contacted Emon with an offer of part-time factory work paying €50 a day.
Trusting the offer, Emon travelled by bus from his home near Oroklini on Jun 12 to meet Shahin in Kofinou.
Police say Shahin took him to a secluded area near the Kofinou slaughterhouse, where he stabbed him on a dark road, then strangled him to ensure his death before burying the body in a shallow grave.
After the killing, Shahin allegedly took control of Emon’s phone and SIM card and staged a kidnapping to extort money from the victim’s family.
Messages in Bangla were sent from Emon’s phone to his father, Nasir Uddin, who lives in Greece.
According to the court’s remand order, the first message arrived on the night of the incident.
Subsequent messages demanded a €35,000 ransom, roughly Tk 4.5 million, by Sunday and threatened to kill Emon if the money was not paid.
When the father asked to speak to or see his son, the phone was switched off.
After losing contact with his son, Nasir sought help from authorities in both Cyprus and Greece.
Using digital forensic tools, investigators traced the last signal from Emon’s phone to the Kofinou area.
Police then reviewed CCTV footage and bus routes before identifying Shahin as a suspect.
Larnaca district police and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) later arrested him.-bdnews24
