Police recovered the dismembered body of a youth, who went missing Wednesday morning, from a char of the Padma River in Sadar upazila of Kushtia early Saturday.

Police said they arrested five people including a former leader of Chhatra League who is the mastermind of the killing.

The deceased is Milon Hossain, 24, son of Mawla Box of Purbo Bahirmadi village under Daulatpur upazila of the district. He used to live with his family in E-block of Housing Society in the district headquarters.

Palash Kanti Nath, additional superintendent (crime and operations) of district police, revealed this information on Saturday morning.

He said one of the arrestees phoned the victim to come out of the house on Wednesday morning.

Later, he was kept captive inside a house in the housing area for ransom and subsequently killed there at night after failing to avail the ransom, he said.

On Thursday morning, victim’s wife Mumo Khatun filed a general diary (GD) about the missing with the Sadar police station.

Meanwhile, the accused cut the body into nine pieces to bury those in the char, he said, adding that as per the plan the pieces were buried in six places in the char of the river nearby Kantinagar Boaldah area under Hatash union of the upazila.

During the investigation, police first arrested one of the friends of the victim and later came to know that the district unit of Bangladesh Chhatra League’s expelled Vice President SK Sajeeb led the killing, the police officer said.

Later, on Friday afternoon, four accused including mastermind Sajeeb were arrested and they confessed to their involvement in the killing, he said.

In the preliminary interrogation, the arrestees confessed that they led by the expelled BCL leader murdered him for money, the police officer said.

Earlier, Sajeeb was expelled from the BCL’s district committee for vandalizing Kushtia 250-bed General Hospital and harassing interns physically. Later he was arrested in a vandalism case.

He walked out of the jail in the case a few days back and he is an accused of several cases including extortion.