Strolley murders: Decomposed head and child’s body found in bush

Samaresh Sarkar — the branch manager of a PSU bank in Durgapur — was caught by his co-passengers in a ferry on Saturday while throwing strolley bags, which, he later told police, contained body parts of a woman, with whom he was in an illicit relation, and her daughter.

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Police on Sunday said Sarkar has confessed to the murders. “He had given both Sucheta and her daughter an overdose of sleeping pills and then strangled them. He then hacked their bodies and packed the same into four strolley bags. He avoided trains and hired a car to carry those. He purchased four different tickets for the bags and then tried to dump them in the middle of the Ganga,” said a senior Sreerampore police officer.

Sarkar was on Sunday produced before the court, which sent him to 12-day police custody. Accompanied by Sreerampore police station officers, he was taken to the crime spot in Durgapur but could be brought out of the police vehicle due to the presence of a huge crowd there.

Chakraborty’s husband identified her body at a Sreerampore hospital on Sunday and denied any knowledge of her extra-marital affair with Sarkar. Police sources said Chakraborty used to keep her daughter at neighbours’ residence and go to malls with Sarkar. It was also learnt that Sarkar often used to come to Chakraborty’s residence through the back door.

Sarkar had told the police that he was in a relationship with Chakraborty, a 34-year-old housewife. He claimed Sucheta had been pressuring him to marry her and would often take money from him. Sarkar, however, was a married man and his family stayed at Titagarh near Barrackpore.

He told police that last Friday, when he visited Sucheta at her flat in Durgapur — where she lived with her daughter after being separated from her husband — they had a heated argument. In a fit of rage, he claimed, Chakraborty strangled her daughter Dipanjana and later committed suicide. As he did not want people to learn about the incident, Sarkar claimed he cut up the two bodies, stuffed them in strolley bags and reached Barrackpore Saturday morning in a hired car. He then boarded a ferry from Barrackpore for Sheoraphuli in Hoogly on the other side of the river, but could not dispose of the bags. He returned to Barrackpore by another ferry and it was during the return trip that he threw the bags mid-river and was caught by co-passengers.