Kolkata: An octogenarian man was found murdered at his residence in New Alipore early on Sunday. Moloy Mukherjee (82), was found lying dead on his bed in a room on the first floor. A suitcase had been stolen from his room, which was found ransacked.
The victim’s son, Shubhashis (50), lives with his wife and son at the second floor of the same house in O Block. Kabita Das, a domestic help for the victim discovered him lying in a pool of blood at around 6.30 am.
She then alerted his son, who called up the police. Cops of the New Alipore police station and deputy commissioner of police (south) Praveen Kumar Tripathy inpsected the house. Kabita’s duty hours were from 8 pm to 8 am. At around 11.30 pm on Saturday, she served dinner to Mukherjee, who later went to sleep. Kabita went to sleep on the floor of the terrace in front of Mukherjee’s room, keeping its door ajar.
Inspecting the house, the police found that the accused had taken the iron staircase behind the house for entry through the first floor, but failed to cut open the grill in the terrace before breaking the lock of the door at the first floor in second attempt. Kabita and the victim’s son were questioned by the police separately. They claimed that they did not have an inkling about the murder. Their statements are being scrutinised.
The police suspect the murder to be for profit. An insider’s role isn’t ruled out. Officers of the homicide section of the detective department of the Kolkata police have launched a probe. A sniffer dog was engaged in search in and around the house. In the afternoon, a team of experts from the state forensic science laboratory visited the house and collected samples for examination.
The post-mortem report suggested that the aged man was strangulated by hands and later smothered to death to make sure he wasn’t alive. Trinamul Congress minister Aroop Biswas visited the house. He said, “The police is investigating the case. So it will be inappropriate to comment now. The man was known to me for a long time.”
