Shobhona Nandi

A 72-year-old woman was found dead at her Bansdroni home on Sunday morning, a bonti ripping into her neck and blood stains all around.

Police said Shobhona Nandi was murdered but are clueless about the motive and identity of the killers, with no theft being reported.

The woman lived on the first floor of the two-storeyed house with 84-year-old husband Shibranjan, who suffers from partial dementia and paralysis and other geriatric ailments.

The ground floor of the building has been let out to four youths who work in a telecom firm.

Both daughters of the couple are married. Elder daughter Maitreyee Majumdar, who lives in Murshidabad, said she had talked to her mother over the phone for half an hour from 7.30pm on Saturday. Younger daughter Sutapa Basu lives in Nagerbazar.

“The woman might have been murdered before dinner as the food was left untouched. We learnt from family members that the victim had to feed her husband as he could not eat on his own,” said an officer of Regent Park police station.

“Shibranjan said that Shobhona had rushed downstairs last evening shouting ‘thief, thief’. He can’t recall anything else,” the officer added.

Shibranjan’s nephew Biswaraj, who lives in an adjacent building, said that around 6am he had heard his uncle call out to him from the balcony. “When I asked him what had happened, he said my aunt was missing. I asked him to open the ground-floor entrance and hurried over.”

Biswaraj found the door to the Nandi house locked from inside. “I knew my uncle would take time to open it because of his disability. When I could finally pushed open the door, I saw my aunt lying with a bonti stuck in her neck and blood stains everywhere.”

Shibranjan later said he had slipped on the blood while trying to open the door.

The cops initially suspected the four tenants as they were not present when the body was found. “We later tracked them down and they said they had to leave for office early. The youths use a separate door in the building,” said Sunil Kumar Chowdhury, the additional superintendent of South 24-Parganas police.