The body of a 38-year-old migrant worker was recovered from the septic tank of a house at Mohanpur village in Malda district on Friday, 12 days after he had gone missing.

Police have arrested the deceased’s wife and a local youth with whom she was apparently having an extra-marital affair for allegedly killing Sadikul Khan.

According to police sources, Sadikul got married to Sarifa Bibi around 10 years back. The couple has two children.

“Around 12 days back, Sadikul went missing. We started a probe following a complaint. During the investigation, the call list of the cell phones of Khan and his wife were scrutinised. We found that Sarifa often spoke with Lalchand Sheikh aka Nur Alam, a youth who lives nearby. This made us detain Sheikh,” said Ashis Das, the inspector-in-charge of Englishbazar police station.

The police gathered some more information and came to know that Sarifa was having an extra-marital affair with Sheikh.

“The victim was aware of the affair and the couple would often quarrel over the issue,” the officer said.

“Later, we also detained Sarifa. As we interrogated them together, they confessed to the crime. The duo had slashed the victim’s throat and killed him. Then they packed his body in a wooden box and dumped it in the septic tank of the house of one of Sheikh’s relatives,” added the officer.

Based on their statements, the migrant worker’s body was fished out of the septic tank on Friday.

“We are waiting for the post-mortem report. We are also trying to find out whether anybody else is involved in the crime,” Das said.

Blast

Three persons were injured when a parcel exploded at a medicine shop in North Dinajpur district on Friday afternoon.

Sources said a woman handed over a parcel to Ashraf Ali Choudhury, the elder brother of Bablu Choudhury, a local resident who runs a pharmacy shop in Baharail market of Hemtabad area.

Later, when Bablu tried to open the parcel, it exploded injuring him and two others in the shop. They are under treatment at the Raiganj Government Medical College & Hospital.

Police said a probe was on.

Additional reporting by Kousik Sen in Raiganj