A mother and daughter who were caught trying to dispose of a relative's corpse stuffed inside a trolley bag at Ahiritola Ghat were found guilty of murder and causing disappearance of evidence, and convicted for life by a Barasat court on Monday.
Arati Ghosh, 55, an ayah by profession, and her daughter Falguni, 34, were arrested in February after morning walkers in north Calcutta spotted them dragging a trolley bag that seemed very heavy.
A woman’s body, with her legs severed from her ankles, was found inside the bag. The deceased was identified as Sumita Ghosh, a relative who had come to stay with them for a few days.
“The Barasat court has awarded life imprisonment to the accused. The case reached its conviction within eight months of its detection,” Barasat superintendent of police Pratiksha Jharkhariya said on Monday.
The police said “greed” was the motive behind the murder.
“The mother and daughter had an altercation with the victim. The daughter hit her with a blunt object and then strangled her to death. After the murder, the deceased's ATM card was used to purchase a suitcase from Burrabazar to be used later to dispose of the body. However, the body did not fit in the suitcase. Arati chopped off the ankles. The severed ankles were also kept in the same suitcase,” said Jharkhariya.
The mother and daughter then hired a cycle van to carry the suitcase to the main road at Madhyamgram, where they hired a cab to reach Ahiritola to dispose of the suitcase in the Hooghly.
“The women had also made unauthorised transactions from the deceased's bank account and purchased some gold jewellery from Burrabazar,” said an officer.
The police said the prosecution had submitted a list of 64 witnesses in the case.
They had collected CCTV footage showing the two women carrying a trolley to the main road in Madhyamgram and then boarding a taxi.
A gait pattern analysis was conducted to compare the walking patterns of the women in the footage with the accused. A precise match validated the police's investigation into the mother and daughter's role in the crime.
Special public prosecutor Bivas Chatterjee represented the state in this case.