Police recovered the naked body of Andrew Gonzalvez, 35, his mouth, hands and legs tied with rope, at 10:45pm from his bedroom on the first floor of a three-storey building Maya Bhaban owned by Shafiul Azam, retired chief engineer of Khulna Development Authority (KDA), at Sonadanga residential area of Khulna city.

According to police, Andrew Gonzalvez was the caretaker of the apartment rented by another Italian, Patrio Mariani. A high official of Dalit, an NGO dealing with environmental affairs with headquarters in Italy, Mariani has been living in the apartment for a year.

The officer-in-charge (OC) of Sonadanga Police Station said, Andrew Gonzalvez was strangled and the murder took place when there was nobody in the apartment. However, the motive of the murder is yet to be known. The killers did not take anything from the apartment, the OC said.

The police arrested Mahbubur Rahman, 30, son of the owner of Maya Bhaban, and were interrogating him. They also questioned Patrio Mariani on Saturday night following the recovery of Gonzalvez's dead body.

Swapan Kumar Das, director of the Khulna unit of Dalit, lodged an FIR on Saturday night with the Sonadanga PS as complainant naming none as accused.

The body of Gonzalvez was sent to the Khulna Medical College and Hospital morgue for autopsy.