Cuttack, July 5: Police have arrested two persons for allegedly killing their sister Nilima Saha, who was found dead at her Shelter Chhak home in Bidanasi police limits.

The 40-year-old beauty parlour owner died of fatal injuries on her head in the late hours of Saturday night.

Bidanasi police said they arrested Nilima's elder brother Somnath Saha, 46, and younger sister Purnima Kundu, 36, yesterday as investigations revealed that the murder was an outcome of a dispute among the siblings over shares of money earned from the sale of a paternal land, which had been in Nilima's custody.

"Both the accused - Somnath and Purnima were remanded to judicial custody in Choudwar jail after a magistrate court refused to grant them bail," said Bidanasi police station inspector-in-charge Pradeep Kumar Rout.

The police said Nilima was unmarried and stayed at her paternal house along with her elder brother Somnath who lived with his wife and two children. Their younger sister Purnima, who was married to Tapan Kundu of Dhenkanal, has also been staying in the same house, along with her husband and two children, for some years.

While Nilima used to run a beauty parlour, her elder brother was a vegetable vendor. However, there were frequent tiffs among the siblings over financial matters.

Purnima, who used to work in Nilima's parlour, wanted some money from her to open her own parlour. Somnath wanted Nilima to give him some money to open a vegetable shop. However, Nilima had been expressing her inability to provide them any money.

On July 2, Nilima was found dead under mysterious circumstances with her head drenched in blood. Purnima said some goons wearing raincoats entered the house and assaulted her and killed Nilima by hitting her on the head. Purnima, who had head injuries, said her elder brother was not at home at the time of the incident.

The police had registered a murder case but were not convinced with Purnima's story. Later during investigation, the cops came across footages of a CCTV camera installed in a nearby house, which proved Somnath's alibi was false.

The cops said the CCTV footages revealed that Somnath had left the house around 5.28am in the morning. The post-mortem report indicated that Nilima was killed before 3am. She had died after bleeding for nearly half an hour. Immediate hospital treatment could have saved her. The findings proved Purnima's story of raincoat-clad goons was also false.

"Later during interrogation Somnath and Purnima reportedly confessed to have pounded Nilima's head in rage with a brick several times when she was asleep and left her to bleed to death," Rout said.