Dhaka, Dec 11 (AFP) Bangladesh police Wednesday found the body of a Chinese businessman who was murdered and his body dumped in an upscale Dhaka neighbourhood, officials said.

Acting on a tip-off, police and an elite security unit recovered the body of Gao Jianhui buried in a residential backyard outside his home in Banani, local police chief Nure Azam Mia told AFP.

"It is a murder case. He was killed sometime yesterday evening," he said. Gao, 47, who had been living in the Bangladeshi capital for several years, supplied stone for some key Chinese-financed projects including the country's largest bridge and one of the biggest coal-fired power plants, police said.

"He was formerly in the clothing business and then started supplying stones to the Chinese projects in Bangladesh," Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Sudip Chakraborty told AFP.

"We suspect he was strangulated to death with a pillow or similar object," he said. There was no immediate comment from the Chinese embassy whose officials visited the scene.

Dhaka has been aggressively courting Chinese investment in key infrastructures such as roads, bridges and power plants in an effort to power its booming economy. China signed a raft of deals to fund Bangladeshi projects worth more than $20 billion during a visit by President Xi Jinping in October 2016. (AFP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)