Police have arrested 20-year-old Vaidehi Mahensariya in connection with a suspected murder in Salt Lake’s AJ block, where partially burnt skeletal remains of a man was found on the roof of a two-storey house in December.

The body is suspected to be of 25-year-old Arjun Mahensariya, Vaidehi’s brother and the eldest son of the family. The police had earlier arrested his mother Geeta and younger brother Vidur, 22.

The preliminary post-mortem report of the remains has listed ante-mortem burns and a traumatic head injury as the cause of death.

Vaidehi, who is pursuing an undergraduate course in management from Bangalore, was picked up from a relative's house in Ranchi, an officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.

She had come back to the city after the Covid-19 lockdown was announced and was staying in the Salt Lake house with her two brothers and mother, another officer said.

The cops had been trying to establish contact with Vaidehi for nearly a month but they could not as her phone was switched off, said another officer.

The skeletal remains were found by a team of policemen from Bidhannagar East police station, who went to the house following a complaint by the siblings’ father, Anil Mahensariya, who lives separately.

Geeta and Vidur have allegedly told investigating officers that they killed Arjun by hitting him on the head using a grinding stone used to pound spices. “They burnt his body using a combination of ghee and camphor so that the smell did not alert neighbours,” an officer said.

Vaidehi, brought here on transit remand from Ranchi, was produced in a Salt Lake court on Friday. She has been remanded in police custody till January 7.

“Vaidehi went to Ranchi with her mother and her brother from their house in Salt Lake but their relatives there have said Arjun did not visit them. When Geeta and Vidur returned, they did not enter the Salt Lake house. Instead, they checked into a hotel. Vaidehi did not return. She needs to be questioned and taken to the house for reconstruction of the crime,” special public prosecutor Bivas Chatterjee told the court.

Defence lawyer Zakir Hussain, who prayed for her bail, told the court that Vaidehi was in Ranchi because she had no relatives she could live within the city after the cops arrested her mother and brother.