Neil Fonseca has been arrested on the charge of killing his wife and two sons 31 days after their bodies were found in their second-floor flat in Palm Avenue.

A team from Karaya police station went to Repose Nursing Home on Broad Street to take custody of the 49-year-old on Wednesday afternoon. Neil, an interior designer, was being treated at the nursing home for a throat injury since the three bodies were found on January 16.

The nursing home authorities declared him fit on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, his discharge certificate was signed and he was told that he would be handed over to the police.

"Neil Fonseca refused to eat lunch after hearing about his arrest. He started crying but did not resist being taken away. He wore a new set of clothes his brother had brought for him," a nursing home official said.

Neil's wife Jessica, 43, and their 16-year-old twins - Joshua and Darren - were found dead in the couple's bedroom on the morning of January 16. The four had shared the bedroom the previous night.

The couple's daughter Samantha, 21, who studies at a Pennsylvania college and was home on vacation, was in another room with her aunt and apparently clueless about the violence.

Neil had initially told the police that Jessica had killed their sons and also attacked him, which prompted him to retaliate and hit her.

According to the police, Neil later changed her statement and admitted to killing his wife. "He has confessed that he killed his wife but still maintains he does not know what happened to the boys. But we have evidences that suggest otherwise," an officer said.

"We have booked him for murder, tampering with evidence and misleading the police," an officer at Lalbazar said. If convicted, he can be sentenced to death.

Neil left the nursing home around 1.30pm on Wednesday, silently walking out without being handcuffed. He was taken to the Alipore court, where he was remanded in police custody till March 1.

In the evening, he was shifted to the central lock-up at Lalbazar.

Officers of the homicide department will question him to know the motive of the triple murders. “We have not been able to talk to him properly because of his medical condition,” an officer of the department said. The police suspect a fight between the couple over an alleged affair of Neil had led to the killings. The sleuths, however, have not ruled out a debt angle.