A former chairman of the Power Development Board was murdered at his Madhya Badda house in the capital yesterday.

A group of eight to 10 unidentified people slit the throat of Muhammad Khizir Khan, 65, also a freedom fighter, after tying up his family members around 7:00pm, his relatives told The Daily Star.           

Law enforcers recovered his body from the first floor of the six-storey building and sent it to Dhaka Medical College morgue around 12:40am today.

The motive behind the murder remained unknown.

Rafiqul Islam, assistant commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said preliminary investigation showed that it was a pre-planned murder but they were yet to know the motive behind the killing.

Khizir used to live on the second floor of the building and ran a Khankah Sharif on the first floor, said his relatives.

Quoting victim's family members and his car driver, Khizir's cousin Abdur Razzaque said two to three persons, claiming themselves as representatives of a company, gave Khizir Tk 5,000 in advance three or four days ago to rent space on the ground floor of the building to use it as a warehouse.

They were supposed to give Khizir the rest of the Tk 150,000 advance for renting the place yesterday.

Eight to 10 people entered the house around 6:45pm when Khizir and his wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, two grand-children and two domestic helps were on the second floor of the building, said Razzaque.

The security guard had been on leave since the Eid, he said.

Khan's nephew Mahbube Alam said three to four members of the gang went to the second floor and rang the calling bell.

Through the peephole, Khizir's wife saw some unknown men standing at the door and then informed her husband.

When Khizir recognised the men as the "company representatives", he opened the door, and asked them to wait for him at Khankah Sharif on the first floor. He then came down, said Mahbube.

After a while, three to four persons carrying machetes went to the second floor through an alternative staircase inside the building. They tied all the family members and domestic helps with curtains and gagged them, he said.

One of them was carrying a small firearm. He threatened to kill them if they dared to scream, said Mahbube.

In the meantime, Khizir's driver Mostafa, who had gone out with Khizir's younger son, returned to the house around 7:00pm. Some members of the gang tied him up and took him to the second floor.

They then opened three lockers on the second floor, said Mahbube.

He, however, couldn't say whether they had taken anything.

Around 7:15pm, the gang left the house. The driver later managed to free himself, went to the first floor and found Khizir's body lying on the floor, said Mahbube.

Abdul Jalil, officer-in-charge of Badda Police Station, said they were yet to arrest anyone in connection with the murder. No case was filed as of filing of this report at 2:30am.

A CID team has collected evidence from the scene and a police team prepared an inquest report.

Relatives said as far as they knew he had no enmity with anyone and that they were clueless why he had to meet such a brutal death.

He used to work as consultant at different government and private projects since his retirement in 2007.