The chargesheet was submitted to the Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM), Chittagong.

The other 16 who stand accused are Azimuddin Mahmud, Abdul Hamid, Paritosh Rakshit, Irfan Chowdhury, Jahangir Alam, Kajal Rakshit, Aparup Rakshit, Arun Rakshit, Barun Rakshit, Amit Rakshit, Saroj Guha, Elahi Jan, Dipak Dutta Bhola, Mohammad Mubarak, Shahabuddin Sabu and Kamrul Hasan Titu. The first 11 of them were accused in the first information report (FIR), said police.

Investigation Officer (IO) Sub-Inspector Abdul Latif submitted the chargesheet against 17 after 110 days of investigation beginning on April 22 this year and quizzing 48 witnesses, police said.

Srikanta Rakshit, 27, son of lawyer Mridul Rakshit, was kidnapped from city's Ice Factory Road on the evening of April 19 while he was going to Agrabad commercial area with a friend to buy computer accessories.

Police recovered the beheaded body of Srikanta from Tandrabil area of Shikarpur union under Hathazari thana the following morning. The severed head was found in Mahamaya area under Mirersarai thana on April 24.

Shikha Rani Rakshit, mother of Srikkanta, lodged a murder case on April 20 with the Doublemooring Police Station accusing 11 persons including Azimuddin Mahmud, a neighbour of the Srikkanta family at Hazarigoli, as prime suspect.

Of the 17 accused, only five are now in jail. They are Jahangir, Dipak, Mubarak, Sabu and Titu.

Sources said Jahangir, Dipak and Mubarak later gave confessional statements and the name of the AL lawmaker surfaced in the statements of Dipak and Mubarak, reportedly activists of Roazan thana chapter of the AL's student front Bangladesh Chhatra League.

The IO in the chargesheet said past enmity and greed to gobble up huge property of the Srikanta family in the city were the prime motives behind the gruesome killing.

The chargesheet further said Azim, Jahangir, Dipak, Kamrul, Sabu and Mubarak executed the killing while the rest 11 including the AL MP had aided and abetted them in the act.

Two more suspects, Nurul Absar and Ramzan, were cleared of charges following investigations.

AL lawmaker Fazle Karim Chow-dhury told The Daily Star on telephone last night that his political rivals Salauddin Quader Chow-dhury and Giasuddin Quader Chow-dhury had the two arrested and that the police forcefully squeezed a confessional statement from them in court to frame him for the murder.

However, both of them later withdrew their statements and filed a case accusing police of torturing them into giving the statements under duress, he added.

"I am a victim of an unhealthy political culture," said Fazle Karim Chowdhury and asked for a fair trial preceded by an 'impartial inquiry'.