Three men have been arrested in connection with the murder of Ashok Shah, 60, and wife Rashmita, 56, at their Bhowanipore home in south Kolkata. A relative of the couple, who police said was the mastermind, is still at large.
The police said preliminary investigations suggested that the couple were murdered because of Rs 1 lakh that they had lent to one of their relatives, who had died of Covid and whose brother was finding it difficult to repay.
The arrested trio are Subodh Kumar Singh, 45, Jatin Mehta, 44, and Ratnakar Nath, 39. The police, however, did not mention the name of the relative who allegedly hatched the conspiracy. All four are residents of Liluah in Howrah, the police said.
One of the daughters of the couple found them dead in their ground-floor apartment on Harish Mukherjee Road on June 6 evening.
“We have learned that the younger brother of the relative who allegedly masterminded the killings had taken a loan of Rs 1 lakh from Ashok Shah. The brother died of Covid. After his death, repaying the loan became the elder brother’s responsibility,” said Kolkata police commissioner Vineet Goyal.
An officer involved in the investigation said Shah, who was trying to raise funds for his daughter’s wedding, had asked the relative to return his money. “This relative had told his accomplices that Shah had humiliated him and was maligning his image in the community as he was unable to repay the money. This relative apparently had a lot of grudges against Shah. He was carrying a gun when he called on the couple on Monday and was prepared to kill them,” the officer said.
The prime accused had allegedly gone to Shah’s home with his “friends” around 1pm on Monday and left the house 40 minutes later. They took care to cover their faces with umbrellas so the police could not identify them from CCTV footage, the officer said.
“He had given an assurance to his accomplices that there was a lot of money in the house, which they would share,” the police commissioner said.
The relative was also planning to repay a part of the loan he had taken from various people with the stolen booty, he said.
The three arrested were not related to the family of the deceased and knew them only through the relative.
One of them has purportedly admitted before the police that he had stabbed Shah with a knife. The knife and the gun — which was used to kill Rashmita — have yet to be recovered, the police said.
Apart from this relative and the three persons who have been arrested, a few others could have been involved in the crime, officers said.
Jatin Mehta, the police said, was the first to be picked up from his Howrah home early on Thursday. Based on his statements, the police rounded up Subodh Singh and Ratnakar Nath from near Shalimar railway station a few hours later.
Officers said they had come to know that the prime accused and the accomplices had last week done a recce of the place where the Shahs’ home is located.
The trio were produced in Alipore court on Thursday and remanded in police custody till June 22.
“We had sought police remand till June 23,” said public prosecutor Parthasarathi Mukherjee.
Defence lawyer Arpita Sarkhel said she pleaded with the judge to reduce the tenure of the police remand.
“But we were told that some of the accused who are still not arrested have fled West Bengal and it was necessary to take full-term remand of the accused to know about their possible whereabouts,” Sarkhel said.