Forensic experts search Pritam Bhattacharjee’s bag in Rangra on Thursday. Picture by Amit Kumar

Naugachia, July 26: Pritam Bhattacharjee’s bag or its contents could not provide any clue to a two-member forensic team that reached the town today to probe into the youth’s murder.

A police team that had yesterday inspected the site near Kataria on NH-31, where Pritam’s body was found, and found a grey-black laptop bag. The bag was examined today. It contained two T-shirts, a trouser, a shirt, a gamchha (towel), a toothbrush, a deodorant, briefcase keys and a packaged water bottle.

A sniffer dog that accompanied the team ran towards a makeshift hut at Chapar village, 2km from the site where the body was found. “The hut was abandoned. The dog came back after loitering around the place for a while,” said a member of the team.

Forensic team members Das Ashok Kumar and Santosh Kumar also collected samples from the bag. The team also examined Pritam’s jeans. “It is difficult to get any effective clue like fingerprints from the bag because it was left abandoned in a bush. It also rained heavily in the past 12-13 days,” said Kumar.

The team members had been called to Bhagalpur on July 15 to examine the body. “We reached Naugachia to find that the body had already been sent to Bhagalpur for cremation. We could not examine the body,” Kumar said.

Sources also raised doubts as to whether the bag belonged to Pritam or not. “We will send photographs of the bag, the shirt and other items found, to Pritam’s family for confirmation. People in Bihar generally don’t use such bags (manufactured by that company). The gamchha found is generally used by Bengalis or people residing in the northeast,” a senior Government Railway Police (GRP) official, also a member of the investigation team, said.

Pritam’s uncle Ram Mohan Bhattacharjee told The Telegraph over phone that Pritam’s bag was grey-black in colour but he did not have the brand that was found. He also said that Pritam always wore branded clothes. “How is it possible to extract evidence from a bag lying in the bush for 13 days, that too amid heavy rain?” said Ram Mohan. He added: “The police should first ascertain whether it was Pritam’s bag or not?”

A.K. Singh, the Naugachia superintendent of police, who was also monitoring the investigation, refused to comment. “The case is being handled by senior GRP officers. I cannot comment on it,” he said.