Residents protest the crime in Nadia’s Bogula on Thursday. Picture by Somnath Kundu

Krishnagar, Aug. 1: A college student in Nadia was today found murdered with her head smashed and clothes tattered in the house of her institute’s lady lab attendant, who lay unconscious, bloodied and unclothed in the toilet.

Local leaders of the CPM, to which the second-year BA student and the middle-aged computer laboratory attendant had links, alleged that both women had been raped by “Trinamul-backed miscreants”. Trinamul refuted the charge.

The police complaint lodged by the 22-year-old student’s mother does not mention rape. The police said preliminary investigations revealed that the crime was committed out of “personal grudge”.

The body of the student, who used to stay the night at the one-storeyed house of the 38-year-old lab attendant, was found under the bed. The student’s mother works as a domestic help at the house of the unmarried lab attendant, who is yet to regain consciousness.

Both women had been hit with a blunt weapon on their head and slashed on their shoulder and hands, the police said.

As the news of the crime spread, residents of Bogula and non-teaching employees of the college blocked the Hanskhali-Krishnagar Road for two hours till 1.30pm demanding the arrest of the culprits.

The crime came to light around 7.30am when a neighbour saw blood flowing out of the drain of the lab attendant’s toilet. She raised the alarm and other neighbours rushed to the house.

“We knocked on the main door but there was no reply. The door was locked from inside. A local youth climbed to the roof and found the door there broken. He climbed down the stairs and opened the main door. We entered the house and found her (lab attendant) lying in a pool of blood in the toilet. We covered her with a sari and took her to the Shaktinagar district hospital in Krishnagar,” the neighbour said.

Another neighbour said: “Before the police arrived, we found the body of the student under a bed.”

CPM district secretariat member Supratim Roy said the student was an SFI candidate in last year’s college elections. “She lost. The lab attendant is an active member of our party’s women’s wing and a DYFI leader. She had participated in the panchayat poll campaign,” he said.

“We don’t rule out the possibility of Trinamul’s involvement in the crime,” Roy added.

CPM state committee member Rama Biswas alleged that both women were raped. “Trinamul-backed goons raped the women as they were our supporters,” Biswas said.

District Trinamul president Gourishankar Dutta refuted the charge. “Trinamul is not involved in it.”

The student’s mother said: “I cannot say with certainty that my daughter and the other woman were raped.”

Nadia police chief S.R. Mishra said: “After preliminary investigations, we don’t think it (the crime) has any political or property connection. It appears the main target was the college student. She may have been targeted out of some personal grudge.”