A number of residents of Jagatpur in northeast Kolkata’s Baguiati vandalised the home of a man identified by police as the key accused in the abduction and murder of two teenage cousins and held a demonstration on a road in the locality.
Satyendra Chowdhury, originally from Bihar, had moved into the neighbourhood after marrying a woman from the locality, earning him the moniker ‘jamai’ in the area.
On Tuesday, as news spread that Atanu Dey and his cousin Abhishek Naskar had been murdered allegedly by Chowdhury and his associates, an angry crowd of residents headed for his home. When they saw the front door of the single-room house locked, they broke the lock with bricks and barged in.
Once inside, they ransacked the house, breaking chairs and pulling down a refrigerator and almirahs. The mob also yanked a LED television set and broke utensils, many of which were thrown out of the house.
Chowdhury, who the police said is absconding, lived in the house with his wife. The woman was not home when the mob barged in.
Chowdhury ran a tyre repairing shop in the area and worked as a broker for used motorcycles, several residents told this newspaper.
Samir Mondal, a resident of the area, said they still could not believe that the two boys would never return.
Abhishek’s mother, Kamala Naskar, said: “Choudhury took our sons away by telling them that he would get them a bike. Instead, their bodies have been found. We never asked any of our neighbours or family members to go and smash things in his house. People here are angry and that is why they did this.”
A police team that went to the neighbourhood after getting news of the ransacking faced the residents’ ire, too.
“The cops did nothing. We begged and pleaded with them to find our children but they did nothing,” Naskar said.
Senior officers who reached the spot persuaded the irate residents who were demonstrating on the road to let vehicles pass.