Debasish Sarkar (face covered) being escorted out of Alipore court on Sunday. (Bibhash Lodh)

Police arrested fugitive Trinamul councillor Shambhu Nath Kow’s nephew Debasish Sarkar from a shopping mall in Bhowanipore on Saturday night for allegedly helping his uncle, who is accused of murdering a party colleague, evade arrest.

The police also recovered during a raid on Saturday night a trolley bag stashed with Rs 59 lakh in cash and jewellery worth some lakhs from the house of a person named Biswanath Naskar in Jinjirabazar, South 24-Parganas, where Kow’s wife and son had taken refuge for two days.

“Debasish works at a shopping mall in Bhowanipore. He was arrested there,” said joint commissioner of police (crime) Pallab Kanti Ghosh.

Debasish told the police during questioning about the house where Kow’s wife Beauty, who has also been on the run, stayed for a couple of days. “Naskar’s house was raided and we found Rs 59 lakh and gold ornaments weighing 566 gram in a bag left behind by Beauty. She left Naskar’s house saying she would soon return to collect the bag,” Ghosh said.

The police ruled out Naskar’s role in sheltering Kow.

Kow allegedly killed Adhir Maity on March 20 at Mathpukur in Pragati Maidan because the latter opposed his plans to rehabilitate vendors on a vacant plot along Dhapa Road. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had instructed the police to arrest Kow, but the councillor has been managing to give the slip. It has been alleged that Kow still enjoyed support from a section of Trinamul leaders and the constabulary.

Naskar, a family friend, said Beauty’s sister Dipali came to his house on March 20 afternoon. “Beauty and I had never met. Dipali introduced her and told me that she would stay at my house for a couple of days with her son. I agreed. She came with a handbag and a trolley. She left on March 23 and told me that she would be back to collect the trolley bag. But she never turned up,” the retired state health department employee said.

Naskar was stunned when he saw Debasish in handcuffs and policemen at his doorstep on Saturday night. “They asked for the trolley. I could not believe when they opened the bag. It was stashed with bundles of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Then the police took out the jewellery. I had seen such ornaments only in films,” Naskar said.

The police said Beauty contacted Dipali on the day of the murder and went to her house at Sarkarpool with 12-year-old son Arijit. A 21-year-old youth took them there on Kow’s two-wheeler.

Dipali claimed that her sister had gone to Naskar’s house on her own. “I was not at home. I had taken my cancer-stricken husband to a doctor for his regular check-up. I came to know about Beauty’s stay at Naskar’s house after she left,” she said.

“A youth came to my house and asked my son to keep the two-wheeler,” she said when asked why Kow’s motorcycle was found in her house.