P-19A Oxytown where Mausumi Ghosh and her domestic help Parul were murdered on Monday night and (above) the deserted P-73 Oxytown where the Pal family of four was wiped out in a poison plot allegedly hatched by a neighbour in 1999. The accused was acquitted in 2007. (Anindya Shankar Ray)

The twin killings in Behala’s Oxytown on Monday night appeared more like murder most foul than a heist gone wrong after the slain homemaker’s father alleged torture by her husband and a veiled telephone threat hours before the incident.

“I was teaching my students when I received a call from my son-in-law. He told me there would be a horror movie on all news channels at 9pm and I should watch it. I could not make out what he meant,” 60-year-old Shankar Dutta told Metro on Tuesday.

The primary school headmaster from Plassey, in Nadia district, lodged a murder complaint against his engineer son-in-law Avik Ghosh in the afternoon. “He used to beat up my daughter for dowry,” Dutta alleged.

Mausumi Ghosh, 30, was found with her throat slit while her maid Parul was fatally hit on the head with a heavy object when her mother-in-law had supposedly stepped out for shopping on Monday evening.

Police were questioning Avik, 35, till late on Tuesday.

Avik, who works in Bihar’s Munger district, returned on Tuesday afternoon and walked straight into Thakurpukur police station. Investigators wouldn’t say why he did so or what his version was.

Mausumi’s father said news of his daughter’s death being flashed across TV channels on Monday night made him realise what Avik may have meant by the “horror movie” he had asked his father-in-law to watch.

“I had lodged a torture complaint against Avik in December 2006, but I could not take my daughter back fearing what others would say. It was a mistake…. I never imagined he could kill her,” Dutta said.

An officer said Mausumi was Avik’s second wife. He had also faced allegations of torturing his first wife.

Avik married Mausumi in May 2006. According to her father, the torture started almost immediately. “My daughter recently told me that Avik had demanded Rs 50,000 to add another floor to their single-storey house,” the headmaster said.

Neighbours were the first to find the bodies on Monday evening after being alerted by the cries of Mausumi’s two-year-old son. They also found the house ransacked, apparently to give the impression that it was a raid by robbers.

The Ghosh family’s neighbours at Oxytown assaulted Avik’s mother, sister Chandrima Chowdhury and her husband Swapan, suspecting them of having a hand in the twin murder. The residents also ransacked Chandrima’s house, a few blocks from the murder scene at P-19A Oxytown.

Police sources said the needle of suspicion turned towards Avik when a string of questions about the incident remained unanswered.

• Why was Mausumi and her help blindfolded and their hands and feet tied?

• Why did Avik’s mother leave home in the evening?

• If the motive was gain, why did the robbers not take away any valuables?

• Why did Avik’s sister Chandrima and husband Swapan not step out of their house even after news of the death reached them?

The police on Tuesday questioned Chandrima, who identifies herself as “Dr” on the nameplate outside her house, and husband Swapan, a trader.

Three electricians who were working in the Ghosh family’s single-storey house were also interrogated.

The allegations of torture levelled against Avik by Mausumi’s father bolstered the police’s suspicion of foul play within the family. “It does not look like an attempted robbery gone wrong,” said an investigator.

A CID team visited P-19A Oxytown along with fingerprint experts on Tuesday evening.

S.K. Chowdhury, the additional superintendent of police of South 24-Parganas, said: “We are looking at all possible angles and have found crucial clues.”

Local Trinamul councillor Shyama Das Roy joined the chorus against Avik and his family, claiming that almost the entire locality knew about what was going on at P-19A.

A two-minute walk away stands P-73, the deserted house where the Pal family was wiped out in 1999 by killers reportedly hired by a neighbour after an alleged affair gone bad with his student Sohini, 22. In 2007, a lower court acquitted the tutor for lack of evidence.