MORBID RIPPLES OF A RELATIONSHIP
Bank manager Samaresh Sarkar had murdered and chopped up a Durgapur woman because she had threatened to expose the extramarital relationship and even approach police if he refused to marry her, cops suspect.
The two trolley bags in which the woman's body parts were found were among the three Sarkar had allegedly bought about a week ago. He had apparently told the woman after buying the bags that he was planning a Puja vacation with her and her five-year-old daughter.
The little girl's body was found in a large trolley bag that washed ashore near Mangal Pandey Ghat in Barrackpore on Sunday evening.
The 45-year-old, who was posted as manager (operations) in the Central Bank of India's Durgapur branch, had tossed four bags into the Hooghly from a boat off the Sheoraphuli bank on Saturday afternoon. The other passengers on the boat became suspicious and prevented the manager from leaving the boat.
Divers deployed by police retrieved two of the bags, in which the women's body parts (excluding the head) were found. The manager has been arrested on the charge of killing the woman and her daughter and remanded in police custody for 12 days.
The woman, who was estranged from her husband, used to live in Durgapur's Bidhannagar with her daughter.
An officer of Sheoraphuli police outpost, in North 24-Parganas, said Sarkar had told him that the woman had come to Barrackpore a week ago. "He suspected that she had been plotting to reveal their extramarital relationship to his family," the officer said.
Barrackpore is around 3km from Titagarh, where Sarkar's wife, two children and his mother live.
"Sarkar somehow managed to persuade her to return to Durgapur. The accused was under immense pressure from the woman to marry her. She also threatened to approach the police if he refused to marry her. Sarkar apparently couldn't risk the matter becoming public and decided to kill her," the officer added.
The murder weapon is yet to be found.
Sarkar has denied killing the mother-daughter duo. He told the police that the woman had first killed her daughter and then slit her own throat. He said he had cut the bodies into small parts with a knife and tried to dispose them of as he feared he might be implicated in the case.
The victim's husband, a schoolteacher in Basirhat, North 24-Parganas, came to Sheoraphuli on Sunday. He said he had never met Sarkar and was in the dark about the alleged relationship between his wife and the accused.
Sucheta had filed a divorce plea but her husband had moved an appeal for restitution of conjugal rights.
Sarkar apparently told the police on Sunday that he had lied on Saturday about how he had travelled from Durgapur to Sheoraphuli.
He had earlier said that he had taken a morning train from Durgapur and got off at Liluah, then taken another train from Liluah to Sheoraphuli, from where he took a boat and crossed the Hooghly to Barrackpore.
On reaching Barrackpore, the handle of one of the trolleys broke, prompting Sarkar to decide to return to Sheoraphuli on the same boat. It was during the journey to Sheoraphuli that he had allegedly thrown the four bags into the river.
On Sunday, he junked that narrative and told the police that he had hired an autorickshaw from near the victim's house to another spot in Durgapur. Then he hired a car for Rs 1,200 to reach Burdwan.
At Burdwan station, he hired another car and came to Manirampur ghat in Barrackpore, from where he took a boat to Sheoraphuli.
A police team on Saturday took Sarkar to Durgapur. "We wanted to visit the place of murder, the victim's house, with Sarkar. But when a police team reached the spot around 10.30pm, local people did not allow us to enter. We did not try to force our way in as the mob might have snatched Sarkar from us," an officer said.
The cops then went to the Bidhannagar outpost of New Township police station with Sarkar and waited for over four hours before visiting the spot again around 3am. This time they managed to enter the house. "Sarkar had the key to the main gate of the house," the officer said.
Members of the police team said they were surprised at the absence of "any visible mark" of murder in the house. "The way he had cut up the woman's body, it would have caused a lot of blood loss. But there was no blood stain in the house. It seems he had cleaned it before leaving the house," the officer said.
After spending about an hour in the house, the police team returned to Sheoraphuli with the accused.
The victims' neighbours said they had last seen them on Thursday. On Saturday, they said, the house was locked.
When Sarkar was produced in the additional chief judicial magistrate's court in Serampore on Sunday afternoon, there was no lawyer to represent him.
When the judge asked him whether he would hire a lawyer or want the government to arrange a lawyer for him, the bank manager said he would appoint a lawyer.
