Police have recovered the bodies of 10 people with their hands and legs tied from a trawler near the coast in the resort town of Cox’s Bazar.

The trawler was found in the Nazirartek Point area near the estuary of the Bankkhali River around 3pm on Sunday, said Mohammad Mahfuzul Islam, superintendent of district police.

Some locals believe they were killed due to a dispute between fishermen as families started identifying them as people from professions other than fishing.

They could not be identified immediately as they had decomposed to a level where their facial features were mostly unrecognisable, Superintendent Mahfuzul said.

Asked about the suspicion of the locals, he said police had news that some people had left home 10-12 days ago but did not return. They had told their families that they would go to the sea or showed some other reasons to leave home.

“We’re getting all kinds of information. We can confirm everything once the investigation ends,” he said in the evening.

He earlier said they believed the bodies were of Bangladeshi citizens. “We’ve sent those to Cox’s Bazar Sadar Hospital for autopsy. We may know the motive behind the murders if we can identify them.”

The Criminal Investigation Department and the Police Bureau of Investigation were also working on the case.

Rubel Mia, a local, said fishermen in another trawler towed the ill-fated vessel near the coast after spotting it half-sunken on Saturday afternoon. They thought the trawler had capsized in a storm two days ago.

Locals called the police after seeing a leg in the trawler at night, but the vessel drifted away.Asia