Bangladeshi landlord decapitated in Brooklyn

Source: brooklyn.news12.com

Police say Mahuddin Mahmud was found dead in the basement of his Kensington store around 6:27pm on January 7, 2014.

A Bangladeshi businessman and landlord was found dead in nearly decapitated state in the basement of a building he owned in Brooklyn, New York early Tuesday.

Mahuddin Mahmud, 57, was found lying on his left side with burns to his face, reports the New York Times quoting police officials.

Homicide detectives are looking for Mohammed Siddiquee, a tenant of Mahmud’s three-storey building at 546 McDonald Avenue in Brooklyn’s Kensington neighborhood.

There was no immediate word of a possible motive for the killing, and friends of Mahmud said they were baffled by the crime.

“It’s so brutal and heinous, no one expected this,” said Faizul Kabir, a dentist who said he had known Mahmud since their childhood together in Bangladesh.

In an interview with the New York Times, Kabir said Mahmud came to the United States 25 years ago from Sandwip in Bangladesh.

He became a successful businessman, eventually earning enough money to bring his two brothers to the United States. He was married and had three little kids, Kabir said.

Mahmud also sent remittances to his parents back in Bangladesh.

Kabir said Mahmud first owned a grocery store before buying the building on McDonald Avenue.

He ran a jewelry store out of the first floor for a while, but closed it about a year ago and rented out the space to a company called PeopleNTech, a technology consulting company.

“An extensive security system left over from the jewelry store remained in place,” said an employee at an auto repair shop next door to Mahmud’s building who did not want to be named because he did not want to be associated with the killing.

Visitors had to be buzzed in and out through two doors, and there were multiple security cameras, though there is also a side entrance for building tenants.

The employee speculated that whoever was responsible was probably known to Mahmud.

“It wasn’t some guy coming off the street,” he said. At the same time, he said, Mahmud “doesn’t seem to have enemies."