Kolkata: Cops crack bank officer’s murder, arrest local tailor

HOWRAH

:

Domjur

police on Friday claimed to have cracked the murder of a private bank loan recovery agent, two days after his dismembered body was found in a sack.

The cops arrested the main accused, Sheikh Samsuddin, who owns a tailoring shop, and one of his accomplices. Bank official Partha Chakraborty’s severed head, which had been missing along with his arms and feet, was recovered late on Friday night from Ankurhati, three kilometres from where the body was found. It was wrapped in plastic and dumped in a bush. A chopper, allegedly used to kill Chakraborty, and the missing Rs 3.5 lakh were found from Samsuddin’s home, according to police.

Both the accused were involved with some self-help groups in the Domjur area, said police. The second accused was also a local political worker, they added. Sleuths said the sack in which the dismembered body was stuffed had small pieces of cloth that were evidently came from some tailoring shop. The cops are probing whether members of SHGs Chakraborty dealt with had opened tailoring shops with money borrowed from the bank. Chakraborty, according to police, had been monitoring the activities of the local self-help groups on behalf of his bank.

The suspects included a woman with whom he last spoke to on his mobile, the police said. Images retrieved from a CCTV camera at a shop, recorded shortly after the call, showed Chakraborty and the woman having an altercation about 2km from Raghavpur, where his body was found. The woman is yet to be arrested.

Police divers searched four ponds in and around Raghavpur but couldn’t find the victim’s missing arms and feet. A CID team reached Domjur to assist the Howrah rural police.

The victim’s father, Pankaj Chakraborty, told police that during his son’s last visit to their home in Nadia’s Chakdah about six weeks ago, he had said he would quit the bank job as he was being pressured by people linked to SHGs. Pankaj told police the job required Chakraborty to monitor monetary transactions of SHG clients of the bank, collect loan repayments and hand these SHGs sums they loaned. Police quoted Pankaj as telling them, “My son seemed disturbed. Partha said he had come across several irregularities in SHGs with political links. He might have either warned some SHGs against irregularities or submitted a report against them.”

Howrah rural SP Gourav Sharma said, “We are trying to reach a conclusion through the links and evidence.”