A 42-year-old man and his wife allegedly travelled nearly 1,400 km from West Bengal to Delhi along with their 13-year-old son, stayed in a hotel using fake Aadhaar cards, and murdered a Delhi University professor living alone in her apartment in East Delhi.
The trio wore surgical masks while entering the apartment complex and, after allegedly committing the murder, fled to the railway station to board a train to West Bengal in the same cab they used to come to the apartment from their hotel.
Delhi Police eventually tracked them through CCTV footage, identifying them after their images matched recordings from both the New Delhi and Bardhaman (Burdwan) railway stations.
According to investigators, the couple had meticulously planned the crime to avoid identification. However, a crucial mistake — changing their clothes before and after the murder — raised suspicion and helped police to crack the case.
Debosmita Paul, who lived alone in her flat at Satyam Apartment in Vasundhara Enclave, was found dead on Thursday afternoon. She had been attacked with a blunt object, and there were cuts on her wrists. Nothing was missing from the flat, which led investigators to suspect that someone known to the victim may have been involved.
The police initially did not pay attention to the masked couple and the child, who appeared to be a family, captured on CCTV cameras. Looking at the footage repeatedly, however, they noticed something curious.
The clothes that the man and woman had on while entering the complex at 3.53 pm were different from the ones they were wearing as they exited at 4.15 pm on Wednesday. The child, however, was wearing the same clothes.
The post mortem examination had established the probable time of death, which corresponded with the 18-minute window during which the couple were inside the Apartment.
As investigators tracked the movements of the couple through a network of CCTV cameras, they identified the cab that had brought them to the apartment complex, and had subsequently taken them to Anand Vihar railway station.
However, instead of boarding a train from Anand Vihar, the couple hired an autorickshaw and travelled to New Delhi railway station, apparently in an attempt to mislead investigators.
There, they boarded the New Delhi-Howrah Poorva Express, which left at 5.40 pm. They had taken off their masks, and police were able to see their faces clearly in CCTV footage from the station.
Meanwhile, police had discovered that the suspects had been staying at a guest house in Dallupura since June 2. The guest house records showed Aadhaar cards with a Bardhaman address.
When police reached Bardhaman, they found that the residents at the address were not the same as the ones identified in the railway station footage.
But upon examining CCTV footage from Bardhaman railway station around the time of arrival of the Poorva Express, the train’s last stop before reaching Howrah, they found the suspects, along with their son. However, police still did not know their address.
With assistance from the West Bengal Police, investigators scrutinised additional CCTV footage and discovered that the couple had parked a scooter near the railway station before travelling to Delhi. Using the vehicle’s registration number, police traced their actual address, and arrested them from their residence.
During interrogation, the accused allegedly revealed that a property dispute with the professor had led them to murder her.
According to police, Debosmita’s family owns property worth crores in Bardhaman, one of which was occupied by the accused as tenants. They have claimed that they paid her a monthly rent of Rs 11,500, and had spent around Rs 1.5 lakh on repairs at the property. The accused also operated a profitable sanitary goods shop from the premises, police said.
The couple had allegedly repeatedly urged Debosmita to sell the property to them, especially because they had invested money in it. However, she refused, and instead asked them to vacate the premises in June. The couple were arrested on Sunday morning and produced before a court in Bardhaman, which granted transit remand for their transfer to Delhi.
Police sources said several key pieces of evidence had been recovered, including a Samsung mobile phone belonging to the deceased, a razor that was allegedly used in the crime, a backpack used by the accused, clothes and a cap allegedly worn during the commission of the offence, train tickets, and other travel-related documents.
Delhi University assistant professor Devosmita Paul. (Photo: www.shivaji.du.ac.in) 
Share
