The victim, Mizanur Rahman Mizan, 30, returned home a month ago after a four-year stay in Malaysia. He was supposed to return to his work place on June 15.

Witnesses said, after a speeding three-wheeler suspiciously dumped a cloth bag by the road at around 1:30pm, locals searched and found a dissected body in it. The fingers of its right hand were severed and the head almost cut off.

Khilgaon police, who recovered the bag, said the cut off right leg was missing in it. Mijan's brother Shapla rushed to Khilgaon Police Station in the afternoon and identified the body.

Mijan went out of his Baro Maghbazar house at around 9:30am yesterday. "Since then we could not reach him through his mobile phone. At around 1:00pm, a man received our call at my brother's [Mizan's] mobile. He said the cellphone set was mugged and asked us to look for him," Shapla said.

"As I called again at my brother's number one hour later, another man received it and said they had killed my brother and would do the same to me if I went to Gulbagh," he added.

A local seeking anonymity said operatives of a criminal gang who are enemy of Zafrul Islam Mintu, the victim's younger brother, might have killed him.

Mintu told newsmen at Dhaka Medical College Hospital that a member of the gang had threatened to kill him over mobile phone when he came with his brother's body at the hospital.

Police could not ascertain the motive behind the murder until filing of this report at 10pm.