The alleged mastermind of the Parliament security breach had left his rented apartment in Baguiati, on the northern fringes of Calcutta, on December 10, saying he was going to Delhi and would return in “three-four days”, his landlady said on Friday.
Lalit Jha, the accused, was arrested in Delhi on Thursday night.
“His parents left for Bihar on December 10. While leaving, his mother told me that Lalit would stay alone in the house for the next few months and that we should take care of him. He dropped them at the railway station and returned home. I was surprised to see him leaving the house again a few hours later, in the late afternoon,” Shefali Sardar told Metro.
The building in Baguiati where Lalit Jha and his family lived in an apartment since 2020.
He told a concerned Shefali that he was going to Delhi, after being asked repeatedly where he was headed to.
Shefali’s family owns the building at Pal Para in Halabartala, in the interiors of Baguiati, where the Jhas lived after shifting from a Girish Park address in north Calcutta.
Shefali took pains to convey to police how Lalit and his family were. “Nice people,” she often said during the conversation. “Lalit never spoke unless asked a question.”
He would go to the local market almost every morning to buy milk and vegetables.
Monika Dey, who stays on the ground floor of the same building where the Jhas lived on the first floor, said Lalit gave her a coconut while leaving. “He had a small backpack. I asked him where he was going. He said he was leaving for Delhi and would return in three-four days,” Monika said.
Jha, his father Devanand, mother Manjula and younger brother Sonu moved into the Baguiati house in November 2020. The first agreement that the family signed with the Sardars was in the name of Lalit Mohan Jha.
According to a purported Aadhaar card submitted by Lalit to the landlord before the rent agreement was signed, his name is “Lalit Mohan Jha” and he was born on February 24, 1995.
This year on Lakshmi Puja, the priest did not turn up, said Chaitali Sardar, another neighbour. “As Lalit is a brahmin, we convinced him to put on a dhoti and perform Lakshmi Puja in our house. Initially, he was reluctant, but he agreed and performed the puja so nicely,” Chaitali said.
He used to accompany father Devanand, a priest by profession, to houses in the neighbourhood if anyone asked him to perform a puja.
Several neighbours in Baguiati recalled that Lalit would leave for work every morning with his father and younger brother. They would return home by 8pm.
“The family followed a routine. The father and two brothers would step out together and go to Burrabazar. They would return together by 8,” said Arpita Sardar, Shefali’s kin.
“I remember Lalit’s mother would often tell us to look for students to whom he could give tuition. He would go all the way to Burrabazar to teach students,” Arpita said.
Apart from teaching, Lalit did not do anything, the neighbours said.
Lalit’s younger brother worked in a shop. His elder brother, Shambhu, who stays in another address at Baguiati with his wife and two children, works in an electrical goods shop in Burrabazar.
In a Rabindra Sarani neighourhood, in north Calcutta, where the Jhas spent several years in a dingy rented room, residents said they used to see many children entering the room to take tuition.
“Once there was some problem and the family left at once. Lalit locked this room and left. The room has remained locked since,” said a neighbour, who did not wish to be named.
To several people on Muktaram Babu Street, also in north Calcutta, Lalit was “panditji’s” son.
“Panditji would come every day to perform puja in this house. Lalit would sometimes come here to meet his father,” said the owner of a tea stall located opposite a building (where Devanand Jha would reportedly go to perform puja) at 59 Muktaram Babu Street.
Neighbours in Baguiati said the police visited the building twice on Thursday but did not enter the apartment where the Jhas lived.
The police said that after living in the rented accommodation on Rabindra Sarani for several years, the family shifted to Girish Park, from wherethey relocated to Baguiati in 2020.
Calcutta police officers said they are also investigating whether college student Nilaksha Aich, to whom Jha had sent a video of the Parliament breach, could be related to the case.
“We are examining the case from all possible angles. We are looking into the details of the NGOs with which Nilakhsha is attached,” said an officer.
An official of the college where Nilaksha studies English said he was just like any other student.