Police probing the murders of a 47-year-old homemaker and her 13-year-old son in southwest Kolkata’s Behala suspect that their assassin had entered the building using keys given to him or her by the woman herself.
Sushmita Mondal and her son Tamojit were found dead in two rooms of their apartment on the second floor of a building — 250 Gopal Mishra Road under Parnasree police station.
Both had their throats slit with sharp weapons and had ‘resistance marks’ on them, the police said.
Resistance marks are signs of possible struggle with the assassin.
Sushmita’s mobile phone that Tamojit was using for his online classes is missing, a source said.
All six families living in the building have keys to the lock on the common entrance on the ground floor.
“The fact that the accused had entered the building without any struggle suggests that he or she had access to the common key which is missing,” said an investigator.
The police had received a distress call on Monday night from Sushmita’s husband Tapan, who informed them that after returning from office around 8.45pm, he found his flat’s main door unlocked and his wife and son lying dead in two rooms.
Sushmita was lying in a pool of blood on her bed in one of the rooms, while Tamojit, a Class VIII student, was lying in the adjoining room, also amid blood, the police said.
Tapan told the police that he usually carried the common key with him, but on Monday he had forgotten to take it with him.
Tapan said he had called his wife a number of times to ask her to open the main gate but she did not respond. So he asked a neighbour to open the main gate for him.
Around 5.15pm Tamojit’s private tutor had gone to the apartment and found the ground floor gate open, the police said.
He took the stairs to reach the second-floor flat but no one opened the door even after he pressed the calling bell a number of times.
The door was locked then, he told the police.
The mother and son were declared dead at Vidyasagar State General Hospital.
A case has been registered at Parnasree police station based on a compliant by Sushmita’s father Rupam Kumar Chattaraj.
The police have detained Tapan for examination.
