Asit Bhanja

Asit Bhanja, the owner of a school who had killed his family before committing suicide, owed several lakhs to acquaintances and was often accused by his wife of neglecting the treatment of his physically-challenged children, police said on Sunday.

Bhanja, who ran Derozio Mission High School from his Belghoria house, was found dead beside the railway tracks in Belghoria on Saturday morning, his neck severed from the body. Hours before, wife Gayatri and the kids — eight-year-old Pritam and four-year-old Priya — were found strangled in their house.

A probe revealed that the couple often fought, with Gayatri accusing Asit of borrowing huge sums for “unknown” reasons and neglecting the treatment of their children.

“Gayatri often complained that Asit was borrowing from local money lenders keeping her in the dark. He was also not arranging for the treatment of Pritam, who could not walk properly, and Priya, who had a deformed neck,” said Gayatri’s father Jiban Bardhan.

Utpal Kumar Ghosh, the principal of Derozio Mission school, said the institution earned Rs 2 lakh last year. “That was not enough to meet the recurring expenses, including the EMI on a bank loan of Rs 25 lakh,” said an officer of Belghoria police station.

The Belghoria house — originally single-storeyed — belonged to Bardhan, who later gifted it to his daughter after her marriage in 1998. Asit then took the loan to add a floor and open the school.

While the school is housed on the ground floor, the Bhanjas shared the first floor with Bardhan and his wife.

Tapan Bardhan, a relative, said several local residents have turned up since Saturday, claiming Asit had borrowed money from them. “But they are not producing any document. How can we be sure how much Asit had borrowed from them?” he asked.

The cops, too, are in the dark about Asit’s indebtedness. “We will search the house for documents related to Asit’s debt,” said P.K. Tripathi, the additional superintendent of police, Barrackpore.

An officer working on the case said Asit’s behaviour was “absolutely normal” when the family celebrated jamai sashthi the day before.

Sudhir Majumdar, another son-in-law of the Bardhans, said: “He organised everything. I cannot imagine how he could commit the gruesome act hours later.”