A doctor by profession, 38-year-old Jahidul Alam Kadir also cultivated a seemingly innocuous hobby: collecting firearms.

However, his fixation with guns led him to be involved in illegal arms trade, police claimed yesterday.

For the last two decades, he gained expertise on modifying and operating arms. This apparently led him to becoming a contract killer, law enforcers alleged.

They also claimed that Jahidul's latest plan was to kill a lawmaker in Sylhet. But before it could be carried out, a team of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit arrested Jahid and his wife Masuma Akter.

Gleaning information from the duo, CTTC unit later recovered three .22 rifles, one .303 rifle, four .32 revolvers, one .22 revolver, five 7.65 pistols, one .25 pistol and 1,622 bullets, which were kept hidden inside a secret chamber of their house in Mymensingh.

An official requesting anonymity said Jahid also had a scope, a device mainly used by professional gunmen.

During interrogation, Jahid confessed that he was a skilled marksman and able to hit any point within a one kilometre range, the official added.

Acting on information, the CTTC first arrested Jahid with two pistols and eight bullets on May 15 from the capital's Jatrabari. Later, his wife was picked up from Gabtoli with one pistol and four bullets on June 3, said Monirul Islam, chief of CTTC unit.

 The CTTC finally came to know about the hidden arms in their house early yesterday, he said while addressing reporters at DMP media centre.

Jahid, who completed an MBBS degree from Mymensingh Medical College in 2002, started collecting arms when he was studying at Kushtia Government College in 1994.

Between 1994 and 2018, Jahid sold over hundreds of firearms to criminals, claimed a CTTC official, who was present during his interrogation.

His criminal career took off in the early 2000s when he met one Tajul Islam at a Mymensingh hospital. Tajul was accused in several cases filed on charges of murder, mugging, arms and robbery. He was the first to introduce Jahid to the world of arms-smuggling.

Monirul said Jahid used to illegally collect imported foreign arms from different authorised dealers and then sold those to underworld criminals at a high profit.

“We have collected some names of the authorised dealers and we will check their import and reserve history before taking action against them,” he said.

Regarding the plan to kill a Sylhet MP, Monirul said they came to know that someone from London had given Jahid a contract recently for the assassination and he was in the planning stage.

“We are trying to collect details about the MP and the London-based person,” Monirul added.