Prabir and Ileena Dasgupta: Confessions

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has pieced together a brutal picture of the Pritha Nag murder last Tuesday.

The 40-year-old had fought hard to resist her sister Ileena and brother-in-law Prabir Dasgupta, but she lost the battle within minutes. She was tied down and water was poured forcibly into her mouth and nose before she was severely beaten. Then, she was strangled to death with a towel.

Interrogation of Dasgupta, a senior official of the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC), who confessed to the murder on Thursday, and the injury marks on the body led the CID to this conclusion. Next, forensic tests will be run to confirm it.

?Samples will be collected from the victim?s fingernails to find out whether the residue matches the scratch marks on Prabir?s body,? a CID sleuth said on Monday.

Dasgupta?s wife Ileena has also been remanded in police custody by the Salt Lake sub-divisional judicial magistrate. Both will be produced in court on April 30. The couple was arrested late last Tuesday from the flat in Anushakti Abasan, the residential complex for VECC employees.

?The CID prayed to take her in police custody to interrogate her and the court granted its appeal,? said Anjan Chowdhury, public prosecutor of the Salt Lake sub-divisional judicial magistrate?s court.

The court also granted Ileena?s request to be present at Pritha?s funeral, as the victim?s nearest relation.

?Investigations revealed that Ileena was equally involved in her sister?s murder. A property-related dispute might have led to the killing,? said Soumen Mitra, deputy inspector-general of police (CID).

Items including a salwar-kameez, a dupatta, some important documents and Pritha?s jewellery were recovered from Dasguptas? apartment as evidence.

Prabir confessed that Pritha was strangled to death on the morning of April 19, according to the CID. Investigations revealed that her hands and legs were probably tied to the bed with help of a salwar-kameez and a lungi, before she was strangulated.

?Both husband and wife were inside the room during the murder,? said an officer.

Prabir said the murder had taken place in the morning and the body was kept in the flat the whole day.

After the murder, Ileena went to Pritha?s Dover Terrace residence. She took some important documents and jewellery and returned to the flat. The couple then called a doctor who asked them to inform the police about the death.