The primary instigator of Friday morning’s assault that allegedly killed a man at Udayan Hostel in central Calcutta was a former student of a city institution who was working as a guard at the hostel, police said.

The 27-year-old “prime suspect”, among the 14 arrested for the death of Irshad Alam, 37, is from Cooch Behar and did his MA in philosophy in 2019, the police said.

“Most of those arrested said the prime suspect had dragged Alam inside the hostel and started assaulting him before others joined in,” said an officer.

Alam, a TV mechanic, was allegedly beaten to death at the Nirmal Chunder Street hostel on suspicion that he had stolen a mobile phone of a resident of the hostel. According to the police, the prime suspect had reported a day before the alleged lynching that his phone was missing.

The preliminary post-mortem report says Alam died because of excessive internal bleeding.

“There were bruises all over the body. The left shin bone was fractured and two fingers of his left hand had dislocated bones. He had a massive haematoma on his back, below his waist. According to the autopsy surgeon’s opinion, there was excessive internal bleeding because of repeated hits,” the officer said.

The accused have purportedly told the police that they were under the impression that a person would not die if assaulted on the back, below the waist.

An officer who is privy to the investigation said some of the accused claimed innocence saying they were not involved in the violence. But they failed to give a satisfactory reply when asked why they did not alert the police when the victim was being assaulted, the officer said.

An officer at Lalbazar said: “The very fact that they were in the same building and were aware of the crime but did nothing to stop it makes them culpable.”

All 14 accused, aged between 21 and 28 years, have been charged with murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy. They are in police custody.

Salt Lake

The three men arrested for allegedly lynching their neighbour in Polenite, on the fringes of Salt Lake, have told the police that they hit Prasenjit Mondal because they thought he had stolen a phone, an officer in the Bidhannagar commissionerate said. The accused are Tapan Sarkar, his son Harshit and Sridam
Mondal.

“The three kept hitting Mondal as they thought he had stolen Tapan Sarkar’s phone. Mondal told them over and over again that he had not stolen the phone, but the attackers paid no heed,” the officer said.

The police said they have spoken to residents of the area.