A proper probe into the murders of teenage cousins from Baguiati seems to have begun more than a fortnight after the deaths.
Investigators said on Wednesday they had ascertained the name of the person whose SIM was used to demand ransom from the families of Atanu Dey and Abhishek Naskar, something they should have done a long time ago.
An officer said the address mentioned in the documents that had been submitted to procure the SIM card has been found to be non-existent.
“The SIM card is in name of Biswanath Das and the address mentioned is of a plot in Jahar Lal Dutta Lane in Ultadanga. On physical verification, it was found that no such address exists. On checking with the telecom operator, we learnt that the abductor had used forged identity documents to procure the SIM,” said an investigator.
The SIM was last used to send WhatsApp messages to the family of one of the boys around 3.12pm on Tuesday, saying they “need not arrange money anymore”.
The messages mentioned that Wednesday would be “Atanu’s last day” and that the family would be informed on Thursday which police station they should call to know about the body’s location.
The phone in which the SIM card was inserted has been switched off since then, investigators said.
The SIM was activated on July 26. An officer said they learnt from the four accused who are in police custody — Abhijit Bose, Shamim Ali, Sahil Mollah and Dipendu Das —that the conspiracy to abduct Atanu was hatched in a small hotel in New Town.
Prime suspect Satyendra Chowdhury, who is yet to be arrested, had allegedly invited his accomplices to the hotel to finalise the plan.
The accused have purportedly told the police that they were offered several lakhs of rupees for being part of the plan.
The group made their first attempt to abduct Atanu on August 18, when they lured him into a car along with one of his friends, saying they were going to get him a bike, sleuths said.
An officer involved in the probe said: “On August 18, they took Atanu and his friend to a bike showroom but claimed that it would take another 30 minutes for the bike to be ready. They took the boys for a ride. But the boys apparently became suspicious and requested them to drop them home.”
Another senior officer in the probe team said it was apparent that the group had planned to kill Atanu over a period of time and had made arrangements accordingly.
“First, they purchased a SIM card, they did a recce on August 18 and then executed the plan on August 22. They had already arranged for a rope in the car, which means they were ready to strangulate the boys,” the senior officer said.
Officers said the gang’s target was Atanu, but they killed Abhishek, too, as he happened to accompany his cousin on August 22.
Although the apparent motive behind the murders was Rs 50,000 that Atanu had paid Satyendra for a bike, the planning and the number of hired people involved in the murders have made the cops suspect that the motive was “much more than Rs 50,000”.
The police said they were trying to track down Satyendra, who was a neighbour of Atanu’s family.
Satyendra, whose ancestral home is in Bihar, and his family have been missing since the disappearance of the boys on August 22.
