An ayah, appointed to care for an elderly couple, was arrested on Saturday along with a male accomplice for the murder of 82-year-old Bijaya Das and the assault of her husband, 87-year-old Prasanta Das, at their New Garia home.
The caregiver, Ashalata Sardar, 36, was picked up from her rented home in Narendrapur, while her alleged accomplice, Mohammad Jalal Mir, 41, was arrested from Dholahat in the Sundarbans early on Saturday.
Mir was the mastermind who planned the crime and accompanied Ashalata to the couple’s home, said Kolkata Police’s joint commissioner (crime) Rupesh Kumar.
“The maid alone had executed the murder. Proceeds of the crime were kept with the male accused and have been recovered from him,” Kumar said.
Police sources said Ashalata had befriended Mir after separating from her husband.
Police tracked the suspects through CCTV footage. The video showed Ashalata entering the house for work, with Mir waiting outside. She exited the house after a while — the murder is believed to have taken place during this time window. According to an initial post-mortem report, Bijaya was killed on Thursday morning.
To avoid leaving evidence, the accused had snapped the power supply and disabled the CCTV, which last recorded footage at 7.12am on Thursday.
Bijaya’s body was found under the staircase of the couple’s two-storey home in New Garia Cooperative Housing early on Friday. Her hands were tied, and she had been smothered and throttled, the police said. It was the couple’s domestic help, who visits every morning, who first discovered them and raised the alarm.
Her husband, Prasanta, was found bound and lying on the floor beside his bed in one of the rooms of their F-32 apartment. His mouth had been tied, but he survived the assault.
The police said Ashalata tied up Prasanta and pushed him under the bed before fleeing the scene.
The couple lived alone, as their son is based in Mumbai and their daughter is settled in Germany. Due to age and ailments, they could barely move without assistance.
Police Commissioner Manoj Verma said on Saturday that robbery was the motive behind the murder. Jewellery allegedly stolen from the couple was recovered from Mir’s possession.
Ashalata had first reported to work on August 17, then remained absent for the next three days before returning on August 21 — the day of the murder.
Commissioner Verma urged residents, especially the elderly, to inform local police stations about domestic help, drivers, and tenants.
“Ideally, homeowners should collect identity documents of their tenants, drivers and helpers. But unfortunately, that did not happen in this case,” he said.
He added that tenant, domestic help, and driver verification forms are available at all police stations and should be submitted with valid ID documents to ensure better security monitoring.
Both Ashalata and Mir were produced in court on Saturday and remanded in police custody.