A Delhi police team that has come to probe the possible Kolkata connection to the Parliament security breach visited three addresses in the city on Tuesday, where Lalit Jha, the alleged “mastermind”, had lived.
A four-member team of Delhi police first visited the Baguiati house where Jha
and his family had taken an apartment on rent three years ago and are staying at present.
However, in the absence of the key to the lock that Jha had put on the house, the team could not step in.
“The Delhi police were asking for the key to the lock. I told them that we had rented out the house to the Jhas and the lock was put by Lalit Jha before he said he was leaving for Delhi on December 10. I told them I did not have the key,” said landlady Shefali Sardar.
The officers from Delhi recorded her statement during their 40-minute stay at the address.
Sardar, who finds it difficult to speak or comprehend Hindi or English, was assisted by one of her daughters-in-law, Chaitali, who acted as an interpreter, she said.
Sardar said she told the police team whatever she knew about Lalit and his family.
The police team then went to 218 Rabindra Sarani and 59 Muktaram Babu Street, where Jha had stayed.
The one-room house at 218 Rabindra Sarani, which the Delhi police team had visited on Monday, too, was opened on Tuesday.
“They (the police team) could not enter the room on Monday as the keys were unavailable. Today, they brought the keys and the room was opened. They used a torch to search the dark and dusty room,” said a resident of the building. The Jhas lived here, on the ground floor, several years ago.
Police sources said noth-ing was seized from the room.
Jha, who did his schooling in the Burrabazar area and also went to a college in Kolkata, used to give private tuition in this room, many in the neighbourhood said.
The team also went to 59 Muktaram Babu Street, not far from the Rabindra Sarani address, where Lalit’s father Devanand used to work as a priest.
“Lalit used to visit this place and sometimes stayed back as caretaker of the building. The police made a general enquiry about the people who were in touch with Lalit,” said a cloth seller whose shop is on the same stretch.